


My Heart's An Engine

by yixingscat



Series: The Building Blocks Come Tumbling Down [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Hate Sex, Hate to Love, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mechanic Sehun, Mental Health Issues, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Slow Burn, Soccer Player Lu Han, Spin-off of TBBCTD, Trust Issues, Use of Antidepressants, i cant add all the tags here, johnny and sehun are mechanics, thats why i love it so much, theres some major problems, this story is so weird
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:33:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 64,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28871628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yixingscat/pseuds/yixingscat
Summary: love has always been a struggle for sehun. that is, until he gets a call about a breakdown 15 miles out of town and is obligated to go help.or: where luhan finds out what it's like not to be the best player in the league, and where sehun finally finds that someone who makes his heart rev...again.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol, Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongin | Kai, Lu Han/Oh Sehun
Series: The Building Blocks Come Tumbling Down [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117328
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. The Mechanic, the Manager, and the Masked Boy

**Author's Note:**

> -rated m for future mature content, though this story is not based solely on it. 
> 
> i'm back with the hunhan spin-off of tbbctd, and just want to say that i love this story. it has yet to be finished but will be in a matter of weeks. it will be significantly shorter than tbbctd, but will be just as emotion-packed (though i won't say which emotion).  
> this is one of the hardest stories i've ever had the honor of writing. it's been a struggle, and i hope that you will give this fic a chance for that very reason. i've put a lot of work into this and almost every story i've written. i'm no big face in the world of exo fan fiction, but i try.  
> have a lovely time reading this fic and i can't wait to see you at the end, enjoy!!  
> p.s. please kindly ignore any mistakes, and all comments, kudos, subs, and bookmarks are all greatly appreciated. thank you!

sehun sighs, wiping his hands of the grease from the last vehicle he touched. since christmas was approaching soon, more and more cars would pile into the garage with the excuse that they hydroplaned or whatever, but he really knew it was just because of texting and driving. the snow would get thicker and heavier as winter carries on, but the mechanic is sure that he would be more than pleased to have the snow dissipate and for the world to have a rather lengthy and prolonged summer instead.

it’s the last hour of the day and he’s itching to say fuck it and go home, but that’s the problem; he owns this garage, thus he cannot. it’s at times like these when he really regrets ever becoming a carbon copy of his father. he wishes he could’ve been something else. what else he could’ve been, he has no clue, but that’s the fun part of life. you go into situations where you have no idea what to do, but you figure it out along the way. the 24-year-old has played that game every single day of his life. he really hates listening, like, _really_ hates it, but he knows he has to do things. it’s part of life. and that’s exactly why he stands where he stands now.

“where’re you going, oh?” johnny seo calls, looking up from his position hunched over the worn and tattered transmission of a mustang. “slacking off in your own garage?”

“ha ha,” sehun blandly replies, wondering how the younger could still manage to see correctly after the night they’d spent there. it was long, so he was tired. “you should really go home, you know. it’s late. you have to have something better to do than this.”

the younger boy doesn’t look up from his work, however, the silent smile on his face never leaves. “you always say that and yet, here you are.”

the elder rolls his eyes. “i think you’re forgetting you’re my employee, seo. heed my warning.”

only then does johnny seo, the fabulous pretty boy mechanic he regrets ever hiring, snort his heart out. “what ‘warning’?” he laughs after managing to retain his cool, only to lose it once again. “you’re so different than you think you are, oh. and i think you’re forgetting that i may be your employee, but i’m also your friend.”

sehun rolls his eyes. “i don’t have time for this.”

“what do you actually have time for?” johnny retorts before rising from his position to look his boss-slash-friend in the eye. “really though, where’re you going?”

“westward, out of town. got a call from a ‘yoo joonseok’, says he’s been stuck there since 9. he’s 15 miles out.”

“15?!" johnny exclaims. “it’s supposed to storm tonight, sehun, you sure you'll be back in time? i’m not sure you should go all they way out there right now.”

sehun sighs. “what am i supposed to do, let them sit there and freeze? it’s my job, seo. i’ve been doing this since i was a teenager, i’ll be fine.”

“uh-uh,” the younger scoffs. “call the authorities, i’m sure they’ll send a guy or two out to help them. you’re a mechanic, oh. you don’t go head first into situations that could be risky.”

oh, johnny seo. so insolent and stubborn.

the other rolls his eyes at his friend’s insistent behavior, wanting to put him in his place. but it’s never like oh sehun’s place to reprimand someone he has no business reprimanding. sehun may be his boss, but johnny's right, they’re also friends. they have been since high school and chanyeol, baekhyun, and kyungsoo all graduated before he did, so he had to resort to actually becoming sociable again. however, that was not easy as he was a natural introvert who gave an impermeable bitch-face to everyone he knew, but sehun made it in the end. now he’s stuck with johnny.

“it is my job, seo,” sehun says. “it was dad’s job, now it’s mine. that’s what he left the pickup for, after all.” he ignores how johnny scoffs and turns back to working while muttering things along the lines _what a bitch_ that sehun couldn’t deny.

once he’s settled inside the beat-up pickup truck his father left behind with his passing, he runs a hand through his hair to shake away the fatigue. he’s been working three whole days in a row, had at least seven cups of coffee, and is, for lack of a better word, exhausted. he’s only in his prime age, as his parents would put it, and he’s already working the hell out of himself. no wonder his mother opposed the idea of her husband still having the garage when he was child. sehun doesn’t even have a child like his dad did at this time and yet, this is still extremely tiring.

turning the key in the ignition, sehun listens as the old pickup fires itself up, humming loudly with age. he’s fixed this damn thing too many times to count.

town is never as peaceful as it at night. night is when everyone goes in their respective homes, minds their own business, and sleeps. as much as he wishes he could do that, it’s his job to maintain what his father started, and sadly, could not finish.

the load of having to carry on the family business was a bit overwhelming despite his extensive knowledge of all things auto-related. he can name every part in your car that you’re in need of and he’ll get it to you as fast as he can. but while he may be good at it, he just doesn’t see it. perhaps he wants to stay on the job, he actually really likes getting to fix things all the time like he does his friends’ relationships, but there’s something missing and he’s desperate to find out precisely the shape of that missing piece.

suddenly nearing the scene to which he was called after a good 45 minutes of being deeply engaged in thought, he pulls over, eyes landing on the two figures huddled in coats standing by the car. one continues waving his hands in the air despite sehun already acknowledging him, while the shorter one desperately clutches his coat closer to his body as if it were a real cage away from the cold. he cannot see their faces, but from what can see, the shorter is wearing a mask while the man next to his is not. sehun narrows his eyes. they don’t have lots of air pollution, which is a common reason to why one would wear a mask, why would he have a mask on? maybe he's sick? he shrugs away the thought and all the possibilities, deciding it’s far too cold to be lingering out in the dark when a storm is about to hit.

sehun graciously exits the truck, landing on his boots with a soft _thud_.

as he approaches, the male without the mask takes the initiative to meet him in the middle, walking forward as well to leave the other shivering coat-clad person behind.

“hi there,” the man says, his voice quivering with the cold. “thanks for coming.”

“no problem,” sehun replies nonchalantly. he just wants to get this done. “what happened here?”

“i’m not sure. we were driving below the speed limit, coming from seoul. i don’t think it was anything too serious.”

“well,” sehun manages. “we’ll have to see about that. was your check engine light on?”

“my what?” the man, yoo joonseok as sehun infers from his cluelessness, exasperates. 

how does this man even manage to have a license, much less a car to exercise it with? he thought this was stuff everyone learnt. perhaps it was from being the son of noteworthy mechanic, but sehun learned this stuff when he was very, very young. 10, maybe.

sehun suppresses his groan and eye-roll. “your check engine light. it’s there to warn you if there’s a potential malfunction with the engine. was it on?”

“no, i don’t think so—“

“yes,” the male with the mask on interrupts suddenly, pushing his sunglasses further up on his nose while tugging down on his hat. “it was on.”

sehun raises a brow at joonseok who stands beside him, an incredulous look on his face. “it was?”

“yes,” the boy repeats. “it was on since we left seoul, even before that. i told you we should stop, but you said it was just another way that car companies get you to spend more useless money. i don't think you were even listening to me."

“well, i-i,” joonseok stammers, seemingly appalled at the fact that this boy had just blatantly threw him under the bus. “i didn’t mean that, now, did i?”

“i wouldn’t be surprised,” sehun mutters. “some car companies do that and i get a lot of complaints about it, but your car's obviously not malfunctioning for a deliberate reason. it needs to be towed.”

from his perspective, it looks like the car is overheating (but maybe not, he’ll have to inspect) because of the fumes rising from beneath to hood of the extremely expensive car. sehun takes note that this car fits under the category of luxury, but he’s never dealt with luxury before, so do this mean he must be more careful? or should be just as gentle as any other customer’s vehicle?

“oh, thanks,” joonseok says. “how much...?”

sehun dismisses the man as he reaches down into his pocket for, most likely, his wallet. “oh no, i’ll need to take it back to the shop for an inspection and whatever repairs you need. you can pay me afterwards."

“how long will that take?”

“shouldn’t take too long. why, do you have somewhere you need to be?”

joonseok nods, suddenly serious in turn to his previous expression of visibly questioning sehun. “yes, we have to be somewhere very important two days from now. do you think you can get it done by tonight?”

great, sehun thinks, a little pissed that this is more work he can’t just hand off to another employee. he knows that johnny is probably home by now in avoidance to the storm developing overhead this town and a few others. _guess i’m not getting any sleep tonight._

“uh, maybe. it may take a little while if there’s critical damage beneath the surface. i need to check the engine and everything, so i’ll see what i can do for you.”

the boy with the mask on suddenly steps forward. “we need somewhere to stay tonight, do you know of any place? we don’t have a car either.”

sehun almost laughs at the self-evident statement before concealing it, nodding while biting his lips. “yeah. you guys can ride home with me. i’ve got a backseat. just let me hook you up.”

sehun walks away to hop back in his truck, backing up until he’s aligned with the face of the expensive vehicle. when he deems himself close enough, he once again jumps out the fasten the hitch that will pull them all away from this smoothly. “there we go,” he breathes when everything goes fine and he can properly pull the car.

he quickly gestures for the two other men to get in the truck, joonseok taking the passenger seat like it was his own vehicle and the boy whose name he still did not know shuffled awkwardly into the back.

“so you’re a mechanic?” joonseok asks out of nowhere, piercing the silence in the atmosphere.

sehun clicks his tongue. _was that not obvious?_ “yes, sir,” he accedes in a disinterested tone.

“for how long?”

 _too long_ , he wants to say, but chooses to go with, “my whole life, really.” being raised in a garage, it’s true. the only things he’s seen consistently throughout his entire life was car parts and chanyeol and baekhyun arguing and then making up and being stupid again.

“wow,” joonseok exclaims. “that’s a long time.” should he take offense in that?

“how old are you, 27, 28?” the boy asks.

sehun glances in the rear-view mirror while the boy is distracted by adjusting his mask. sehun swears that when he went to adjust it, it showed a glimpse of a face he’s seen before. “24, actually." 

“damn,” joonseok mutters and sehun wonders if that’s professionalism in seoul, because not just _anyone_ would have a car like that. perhaps he should ask chanyeol. "you’re young.”

“excuse him,” the boy says. “and what did you say your name was?"

“i never told you my name,” sehun replies, a little suspicious. “and i didn’t get yours. unless you’re yoo joonseok.”

the man next to him raises a hand. “uh...no, that’s me. sorry, i was in a rush when i called.”

“ah,” sehun hums with a nod. “my name is sehun. oh sehun. i own oh’s automotive garage.”

sehun, joonseok, or the male in the back do not speak as they arrive at the town's bed n’ breakfast that baekhyun owns. the two seem clueless when sehun maneuvers the stick shift into park. “we’re here.”

“already? ah, i was kind of enjoying this,” joonseok jokes, but it takes of all the ever-changing straightforward sehun to withhold his feelings about the words, a cringe hidden by a diligently practiced façade of blankness.

sehun opens the door with a shrug, trying his best to be patient with the two following behind him. only, he could feel how joonseok felt much more comfortable than mr. no-name did, as he could feel an awkward stare on his back as they walked up to the entryway, admiring the flowers withering with the onset of winter, dying with a sudden thrust of chill into the town. winter isn’t here yet, not like it would be later tonight. sehun already sees miniature snowflakes falling from the expanse of the sky, thus the cold is already here, just waiting patiently. 

his knuckles rap against the glossy black door of baekhyun’s newly established business, grinning when he hears the shouts of a giant being chased and weighed down by multiple children. the door is not that thin, chanyeol is just extremely loud.

chanyeol opens the door in a look of distress, being blinded by the hands of one of his many children. “hi, welcome to—woah, don’t touch me there!” he exclaims suddenly, and one adorable little girl withdraws her hand with a mischievous giggle. “oh...sehun.”

“yep, that’s my name.” the younger smirks when chanyeol reaches out to slap his shoulder, patience obviously a mere thin line held together by his love for his large, _very_ large family, in sehun's opinion. 

“what are you doing here—and oh, guests?” the giant gestures to the two people standing behind him with confused expressions on their faces, well, the portion of mr. no-name’s face that is actually showing.

“yes, actually.”

sehun moves aside to let the two walk in before him, chanyeol assigning his children the task of directing the two strangers to wherever their papa is. he sticks behind to converse with his best friend when he sees the two strangers are out of eye and earshot.

“so, are you an uber now, or what?” chanyeol says amusedly, relaxing at the feeling of not being covered in multitude of his own children.

sehun scoffs and rolls his eyes. “no, you idiot. i got called in to pick them up before the storm hits. and you’re what, a horse?”

chanyeol frowns for a moment before it contorts into a smirk and sehun’s sure he could hear the words before they even left the elder’s mouth. “yeah, in bed i am. just ask baek why he’s sore—“

“i swear to god, i’m going to kill you someday. and baekhyun will too. i can’t even believe you’re a dad, like, how do you even qualify? i wouldn’t be surprised if child services shows up one day looking for you.”

“well, at least i actually have kids,” chanyeol retorts as if it were only the best of insults. “you don’t even have a one-night-stand.”

“are you seriously going to tempt me with that? i’m not the one who didn’t know about their kid for practically two years—“

it’s only when chanyeol practically growls when he knows he’s gone too far. “sehun.”

the younger purses his lips, his shoulders sinking with disappointment. “so sensitive...” he mutters under his breath. “sorry. i should’ve been more considerate of your feelings and all that shit. blah, blah, blah.”

“all that shit!” suddenly says a high-pitched voice and both men, panicked, look down and find the youngest of chanyeol’s twin girls at their feet with a giddy smile on her face, completely unaware of what she just said, all the while they were completely aware and shaking in their boots.

“no, soojin! we don’t say that word!” the giant rebukes in a whisper, terrified that his smaller, heavily pregnant husband will hear and strike at any moment. maybe this is why sehun doesn’t date—because his two best friends, chanyeol and jongin, live in constant fear for their lives. all because of two short demons in the disguise of fairytales. “god, look what you did, sehun! baek’s gonna be so mad.”

sehun cringes, afraid of the smaller himself. it was only last week that baekhyun smacked sehun with a spatula because the younger dropped the f-bomb in front of all of them, including the 5, nearly 6, year-old park yejun who sat frozen in fear of his own parent.

“yeah,” sehun agrees. “i think i’ll let you handle that.” he turns around quickly in avoidance to the humongous hand that came to pull him back to his initial position in an almost _oh no, you don’t_ manner. he narrowly avoids it, pulling open the door before shuffling out quickly, hearing the _sleep with one eye open, oh! you won't get away with everything!_ , at which he almost wants to laugh comically.

but while jogging back down the sidewalk, sehun finally feels the sleepiness he’d been avoiding with tons of caffeine dawning on him, zeroing in on him. he momentarily pauses to catch his breath because it feels like the world is spinning and he’s standing on top of up. he hates this about his job; it works him to death. he hasn't slept a full night who knows how long and he's always walking in a circle. he'll work for nights on end, never stopping for anything other than a cup of much needed coffee or some food, and then he'll end up in his bed for a week as he practically dies from exhaustion. baekhyun has scolded him time and again for this very same reason, but he never listens. because work is something everyone has to do, and oh sehun is no exception. he gets sick every time he works for way too long, but he still carries on.

“wait, sehun! i forgot to thank you!” he hears a muffled voice call. he begins to turn around to reply and say _no need for thank you’s, just pay me when you get your car tomorrow,_ but he does so too fast and his eyes begin to lazily fall closed with the dizziness and over-exhaustion. before he knows it, he’s fading into darkness with only the eyes he saw in his dreams more than four years ago occupying his mind.


	2. Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know that hunhan isn’t much a popular shop anymore, but i still love to watch their chemistry when exo was 12. this story puts a little twist on their relationship (more like a big one), and i’m highly appreciative of anyone who wants to read this. i tried my best, though you should be conscious about some inaccuracies because i’m not a mechanic or a soccer player.   
> anyways, i need to stop my ranting. sorry for any mistakes!! 💖

eyes. 

the one thing he always takes the time to notice about a person is their eyes. he's not sure why, but it's just always been that way. he guesses that when you don't like to talk, looking is a given.

he's more than sure he's seen nearly every eye-shape there is to have, every color that could possibly adorn the iris of the human eye. he just likes making eye contact--that's it. 

chanyeol's eyes are ones he's seen far too many times in being a longtime friend of the giant. distinctly almond-shaped with blackish-brown irises, a beautiful spiral of chocolate with a hypnotizing void in the very middle. baekhyun would describe them that way before he would, but he doesn't mind to say that his best friend really does have gorgeous eyes. nobody is disappointed that nearly every one of the couple's children inherited his eyes. 

baekhyun's eyes are pretty and droopy, ones he has always liked to look at. sehun likes how they're bowed and adorable, but when enhanced and invigorated with a fair amount of eyeshadow or eyeliner, they look sexy and alluring. baekhyun's always had that look in his eyes--the one where he could like right at you and you have to do what he says. sehun likes that they're a gentle yet intense black. sehun really likes baekhyun's eyes. 

and kyungsoo. oh, squishy kyungsoo. with wide owl-eyes that make him look like he's constantly a little surprised by just the most ordinary of things, kyungsoo's eyes take the cake. a noticeable dark brown, they glimmer innocently, even when kyungsoo isn't remotely innocent. they give him the look of a baby bird, but not many know that beneath that peaceful and bored façade, is evilness in its rawest form--or at least says jongin, whose own eyes are sharp and feline, about kyungsoo when the latter is angry at him.

sehun's own eyes--bordering sharp yet soft when he smiles--are black. black, where you can't identify the pupil aside from the iris, and the white of his eyes appear brighter and fuller. his appear dark and intense, so much that he might admit that if he were somebody else, he would be intimidated by his eyes. his unbothered expression is just icing on the cake, as they make him appear distracted and disconnected. that is until he smiles and curve of his eyelid make him look ten times more welcoming. like he's actually interested, when in fact, he is not. 

but those eyes. he's seen those before--once. wait, no. twice. 

sparkly in every definition of the word, shining in the even just the dimmest of light. sehun can imagine tears--hopefully happy ones--in those big, glimmering eyes that will look like the lights of the city in all its glory. iridescence is the presence of all things lustrous and shimmery--like the shadow of the sun over the expansive waters of jeju. they're big and feminine, around the same color as chanyeol's eyes. 

in those eyes, sehun sees the past in the perspective of the future. if that somehow makes sense. 

he sees a world he saw four years ago. 

most people would think that it's absolutely, completely, and utterly irrational that he was once in love with someone who probably knew him as the boy who spilled coffee on him at an airport--he has no significance whatsoever. they would think, call, and label him a loser for having some celebrity crush that would never end up evolving into anything other than the common adolescent "phase". they'd think it was naïve, childish, and absolutely hilarious that he, a mostly responsible adult with an unmanageable attitude, was _stupid._ fucking _stupid._

well, he's not fucking stupid, so go ahead and get that out of your mind. sehun is not dumb. he wouldn't be able to manage a fairly old business, with minimal help from baekhyun on the financial part, if he were dumb. he wouldn't know every damn part to a vehicle if he were dumb. he wouldn't be able to give you the release date of a classic car if he were dumb. 

so why does he feel so senseless? irrelevant? 

some of the things oh sehun will never find out are the answers to those questions he oh-so-desperately searches to find, and why he wakes up to the prettiest eyes he's ever seen. only twice. 

"hi," the boy greets him shortly. he is no stranger. "sorry i woke you up. how are you feeling?" 

with the sun streaming through the voids in the curtains hanging in the room that smells faintly on strawberry, obviously by baekhyun's hand, he squints to get a better look. he can see perfectly fine, however. he just wants to know if he's dreaming. 

"you're--" he's cut off by an itching in his throat that causes a coughing spell to seize control of him. sehun's throat is as dry as a desert located smack in the middle of hell. he points desperately at his throat.

the boy's face lights up. "oh! you need water!" he reaches over to the bedside table, where a glass of water sits. "of course. i'm so sorry." 

sehun grabs the glass of water from his hands and guzzles it down recklessly, not even caring that a steam of the clear liquid drips down his chin from his moment of peril. "umm...t-thanks," he croaks when he finishes, slightly embarrassed that he practically ravaged a cup of water in front of someone so beautiful. 

the deer-like male nods and stares at him for moment, his small but plump lips parted slightly to expose the blunt tips of two white teeth. he looks even more beautiful than he did when he ended up being under sehun with blistering coffee spilled over his clothes. even prettier than on television, which is a given. 

but sehun cannot fall victim to the games his mind tempts him with. not again. because a crush is a fickle and sehun does not tolerate that. 

"sehun," a new voice, a sickeningly sweet familiar voice, says from the threshold. "i see you've met luhan." baekhyun grins from the doorway, button-nose on perfect display and sehun's sure that if chanyeol were here right now, the giant would _melt._ sehun inhales, slightly thankful that his former crush is present at this moment, or else baekhyun would be sitting atop him the best a pregnant person could be, and beating his ass because he didn't listen to him. "you passed out. i wonder why." 

"because i have better things to do than rest," sehun replies bitterly, leaning up on his elbows. "not everybody owns something as easily manageable as an inn, baek." 

the elder's glare sharpens. "no one said it was easy. especially with kids running around." 

sehun just rolls his eyes in response, deeming sticking out his tongue mockingly too childish for a man as mature as him. baekhyun does that to him. he makes him want to slam his head against a wall sometimes, or wish to be one of those stuffed animals in children's shops that sit back and watch everything since they're inanimate and most definitely not alive. oh, how much better his fate would be if he could be something as stupid as a toy, but he wouldn't mind the stupidity if only it meant peacefulness for eternity. 

the soccer player feels the glare between his pregnant salvation who took him on the night of the snow storm that rained all hell, and the boy sitting across from him looking blank and expressionless--but luhan knew, behind those eyes he's seen once before, was compassion and kindness and interest, but none was currently shown. with the rising tension between sehun and the inn-keeper who looks like he's ready to pop, luhan decides he better take his leave before it appears he's trying to impose. 

"um...i think i'll go back downstairs," luhan says, standing from the seat beside the bed. 

in the two's faces as they turn to look to look at him, he sees two different things. in baekhyun's, he sees a look of _please do,_ but in sehun's, he sees a desperately pleading look of _don't go, one step out of this room and he'll mercilessly kick my ass._

but despite the fact that he pities sehun, he takes his leave, shutting the door behind him while thinking about a certain incident that he believes happened around maybe six or so years ago, in the middle of an airport. it just so happened that he was on his way home from his signing with a korean sport's team that endorsed him. that was a year before he became even remotely famous--for his familiarity with korea did not occur until he played quite a few games, even a whole season. 

one might think that with all his years of being surrounded by screeching soccer fans (ones who weren't just for him, and he accepted that), blazing whistles from insistent referees, and the constant dialogue of somewhat educated commentators, he wouldn't remember a thing about what happened that day in the airport. but it's sort of hard to forget someone who ruined your favorite shirt. 

that's right. not only did the boy crash into him, cause his coffee to spill, and be the reason he was slightly late for his plane, he also managed to completely destroy luhan's shirt. it's not everyday that murky brown escapes white fabric, and luhan's shirt was no exception. still, he carried on with his journey to becoming one of the most well-known soccer players over the continent (something he was, believe it or not, quite humble about), and not once did he ever think about getting rid of that shirt. 

damn, now he wishes he had brought it with him. but he didn't know before he left seoul that he would end up stranded in the middle of practically nowhere for him, someone who has lived in the city virtually his entire life. nor did he know that somebody he's always wanted to see again would be the one picking him up. 

coincidences always fuck him up. 

"is he awake?" the giant man downstairs asks him when he lands, squealing children climbing all over him as if he were some sort of equipment qualified for the job (which he might be if he were to ever think about it). it seems that ever since he arrived, which was not long ago, the kids have not left the man alone.

luhan recognizes the man from being a quite popular idol a few years back, known for producing and rapping and "extreme talent". and suddenly, it was like he disappeared from the face of the earth. then he suddenly resurfaced with the amazing news that he had gone off and started a completely new chapter to his life, with his family. luhan never expected that _this_ would end up being the star rapper's family, but crazy things happen, and luhan is all here for them. 

he nods.

"ah," he hums. "did baek send you down, or did you escape? either way, you're lucky. you didn't have to witness an average-height pregnant person attacking a grown man with trust issues, a mechanic at that." chanyeol is right...that would have been slightly disturbing. "baekhyun's a little violent. a little motherly, too, since he claims he practically raised sehun. he doesn't like it when sehun doesn't listen to him because he cares, although he'd never admit it. he tells me all the time that he worries for the loser. i do too, honestly." 

"does this happen often?" luhan inquires. speaking from the perspective of a soccer player, a relatively famous person, he knows as good as anyone else what it's like to be completely exhausted. it's practice, play, repeat. practice, play, repeat. _practice, play, repeat..._

chanyeol purses his lips. "not as much as baekhyun makes it seem--hey, stop it!" he pauses to confront the 2-year-old boy sprawled over his chest in a baby carrier that seems a little irrational for a child of his age, but luhan can't get himself to blame the man for multitasking--which includes being the resident jungle-gym and cooking what luhan concludes is breakfast simultaneously--after all, he has literally no experience with any kids other than the ones he teaches at the soccer camps every year. "but the last time it happened, we thought it would be really fatal. it took place in the summer, but he's okay now." 

"what happened?" 

chanyeol chuckles. "well, aren't you a little curious for a big city guy in a small town?" he jokes amusedly, sighing before mumbling something inaudible under his breath. "sehun had an accident a while back. much like this one, only worse. he could've seriously hurt himself. the little shi-- _man_ is a workaholic. he was in the garage and working on the underside of an suv that got off course. he got dizzy from exhaustion and the jacks holding the car up almost collapsed completely, because of haphazard setup. it really could've ended worse, but it only resulted in a broken leg. baekhyun's been the strictest i've ever seen him since." 

luha gapes. "that's awful. why does he work so much?" he simply cannot believe he is asking about a guy he met _once_ more than half a decade ago as he's trapped inside the town, inside the inn. he never suspected he would end up here. it's not like he knew this place even existed before now. 

the giant smiles cheekily, a prominent dimple highlighting the left side of his face. "figured you'd ask that," he supplies. "but the entire reason it happened was because he got his heart broken. he likes to think it's stupid, but i believe that as long as your heart beats for someone so quickly that you're sure it'll never stop, you love them. he got caught up in a misunderstanding--an angry altercation--and he's never been the same since." 

"oh..." the soccer player hums. "that's sad. do you know what happened to the person he loved?"

chanyeol grins. "not really. we only now just found out that he found himself somewhere he never expected to be." 

luhan guesses that at some point, everyone finds themselves somewhere they never thought they would be. he thinks that people ought to realize it more--that they're completely out of place instead of just being distracted by the events of their lives. he's a strong believer in taking time to think, feel, and sort. and though he has no time to do so himself, he really hopes others do it. or else they will find themselves straying too far from where they really need to be. 

"oh, and here they are," chanyeol greets and luhan turns to throw a glance at the staircase, strangely expecting to find a man dressed in the same tank top as earlier but now littered with bruises. however, his imagination fails to correlate with reality and he sees that there is nothing but pale skin exposed. "surprised you're not dead yet, oh." 

sehun rolls his eyes. "unbelievably, i am too." 

following suit, luhan's rather talkative and outgoing manager trots down the stairs with no smile, but looks giddy nonetheless. the two argue like cats and dogs, he even wonders how he manages to get by with that man being his so-called expert manager when in reality, he wonders how joonseok could have ever became a soccer player at all. 

"good morning, everyone," joonseok chirps, and luhan swears it's like a tiny little needle stabbing his brain. "how are the roads?" 

"road, you mean," baekhyun corrects. "but chanyeol says that it might take a while, no?" 

"it'll probably take longer than expected. the snowstorm hit harder than what was predicted, thus resulting in an overwhelming amount of unpreparedness. but yes, it's coming along. i believe you'll be able to leave in no time," the man recites. 

"how long is 'no time'?" joonseok questions. 

the giant ponders for a moment, tilting his head to the other side when the child strapped to his chest leans it the opposite. "a few days. two or three at most. we don't have what seoul has here. i would know." 

"they'll get it cleared out before that," sehun interrupts. "i'll head over and help them with the plowing. i always do." 

baekhyun's gaze snaps to him, a look of extreme distaste marring the handsomeness of his face. he now looks cuter, to no surprise. 

this is weird. really weird. 

growing up in the city, everything is different. beijing is way different than seoul, ultimately much larger and crowded. he's never had an interest in anything other than taxis and crowded sidewalks and towering buildings that make one feel like a doll in some little girl's room, ready to be placed upon his position, whichever one she decides. 

moving from china to korea was hard, but remaining in the city was not. he was used to all the blaring noises and lack of personal space when he arrived and nothing's changed ever since, not that he minds. that's just the way it is. you adapt, you live, you become so damn used to it, but there's always that one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb. that one thing you'll never get used to. 

and that, for luhan, was snow. he means the ankle-deep snow that pours down over south korea's highest, most populated city. he had never seen so much of the precipitation in his life, but it seemed as if everyone else was used to it. nothing was wrong. he remembers watching incredulously as people donning huge, puffy winter coats passed by him, sometimes staring at their phones and not minding the snow at all. they were all decorated with clothes made just for the occasion of walking through the compacted snow on sidewalks and streets, never once slipping like luhan first had. 

seoul was a completely different place because of that, even as for the past several years he admired every snowflake that fell from the sky in various patterns as they rained down. the big, giant window in his apartment made that possible. and as much as he loves to watch, he doesn't want to be out in. 

snow might just be his worst enemy. 

just like snow trapped him here, stuck with a family with half a million kids and one extremely hot mechanic guy who always insists on doing work and is constantly avoiding luhan's eyes. trapped with his manager. 

maybe he enjoys the former more than the latter. 

"oh, no, you won't," baekhyun replies. "not until i say you can go." 

luhan watches sehun mouth words to himself. he's not sure what he's saying, but he thinks it's along the lines of "you are an adult". "i have a job, baekhyun. there's only one of me here, and who's going to do it if i don't?" 

"someone else will, just not you," the carrier affirms, arms crossed in a teasing smile. "plus, i doubt you even brought your chains. everyone knows you can't get out of here without them." 

sehun stares him offendedly. "what do you think i am, an amateur? of course i brought the chains. i wouldn't be able to leave if i didn't."

"no," baekhyun denies. "you're not going anywhere."

"baekhyun--" 

"i said no!" baekhyun nearly shouts, red in the face. it is more than clear that not only has he had enough of the mechanic's whining, hormones have obviously enhanced his rage, cutting the limit low for sehun. "absolutely not! what happened last time will not intensify under my watch. bad enough, you already passed out last night. it's not happening. you're staying here until i say you can leave." 

chanyeol stands wide-eyed, a warning glance that seems more like a stare thrown over the sehun. the latter gulps nervously, obviously catching the redness around the rim of the pregnant man's eyes. that can only mean one thing and it's not good. 

the carrier runs a hand through his hair, exhaling heavily. "chanyeollie, if he tries to leave, seize his keys. and if you do not, i will know." his glare is furious but clouded with tears that he cannot seem to control. "now, excuse me. baby and i are evidently not feeling well." he marches away--well, as fast a pregnant person can manage--and climbs the stairs warily whilst rubbing his eyes. 

they sit in silence for a moment, everyone a little confused by what just took place. luhan is taken aback at the sensitivity of a man like baekhyun. there's no surprise, mostly because of the hormones, but it felt like everything went downhill before he could even grasp what was happening. 

sehun appears as stoic as ever. however, he does seem tense in his broad shoulders. luhan assumes this is the result of knowing the two parents for a while--or at least he assumes that's what their relationship is, as he likes to term himself as very observant--or other than that, he's just used to it. maybe both. 

chanyeol and the children still claiming him as territory look a little concerned, mostly chanyeol since it's his husband and carrier of his children who just emotionally stormed out seconds ago. his children are seemingly not surprised, but nonetheless a little terrified, and luhan believes they have every right to be. 

meanwhile, joonseok's just--

"whew, that was a mess," his manager facetiously jokes. "that right there is why i'm still single." 

_no,_ luhan wants to say. _the only reason you're still single is because no one actually likes you. when will that dawn on you?_

the soccer player catches chanyeol's somewhat upset glare as he shakes away the astonishment and carries on placing breakfast on the table. luhan tentatively stands up to assist him in all his crowded glory, but before he can, sehun jumps up as well and goes to help. he sits back down, folding his hands over the table. 

"luhan," his manager calls. "i called the company when i got up this morning. they said the lawyers can only wait so long. the signing and the termination--" 

"shh!" he scolds. "keep it down, will you?" 

joonseok rolls his eyes. "right, sorry. just can't wait to get this over with. anyway, according to the terms and agreements, they're giving you two weeks before there's a deadline. after that, you're free to do whatever you please." 

"hmm..." luhan hums. "it seems they're just as eager to get rid of me as i am of them. but why are you mentioning this now?" he adds in a whisper, glancing back to the two tall men vehemently conversing in the kitchen about whatever. 

joonseok offers him a pointed look. "if you stick around, i will be your manager forever, and you and i both know that's not where i want to be. i've got greater things to do. and if you do...you know, there's a high chance i can get promoted. we both benefit from this. you can do whatever you want, and i can finally get a job that makes my mom proud." 

luhan rolls his eyes. he doesn't think that joonseok's mother has anything to be proud of despite his job. "so? let's save this conversation for another time. for once, we're at peace." 

"fine. but this will need to be straightened out sooner or later." 

luhan just shrugs in response. 

"and here's the food for everyone," the giant says cheerily, as if the incident a few minutes ago had never taken place, while he approaches the table, a plate stacked high with pancakes (as by luhan's observations) balanced haphazardly in his hands. "enjoy." 

now this, this isn't the typical bed 'n breakfast. or maybe that's just because luhan's never been to a legitimate one, but he knows it takes folks of real and genuine hospitality to accept one, a masked one at that, into their home. sure, to some it may be considered solely business, but luhan thinks these people don't think like that. he's spent one night here and he's already liking the solitude, the idea that in this place, he doesn't have to pretend to be perfect. 

_now, luhan, why would you ever think that?_

there's not another day in his life he won't have to pretend to be perfect. that's what happens the minute you step foot into the spotlight and you've got eyes on you from every angle, unavoidable gazes that relentlessly stare with higher expectations than one could ever imagine. 

when it comes to fame, nothing is as it seems. 

but here, surrounded a group of people he hasn't know for more than 24 hours; here he sits with a tall, handsome, and stubborn mechanic, an overworked ex-idol father who's just trying to keep everything together, a manager who wishes nothing more than to see the day pass by with another dollar in his bank account, a bunch of rowdy kids, and his own rather confused self, he feels...not perfect. 

this place is not perfect, and neither is he


	3. Boys Over Flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i know this isn’t a popular ship anymore, but i wasn’t going for popular, i was going for my last hunhan project before the ship hits the grave. sorry for any mistakes, love ya!!

one might call sehun the "grinch" or "scrooge" of this town because this time of year, or really any time of year for that matter, is not his thing. he doesn't have the wish to be eternally warm nor eternally cold, he doesn't want it mild and he doesn't want it moderate. it's not really the weather that makes the earth a living hell for him, but rather the fact that everywhere he goes, there's always someone who's happy, while he isn't. 

oh sehun hates winter. he hates the work, the load, and the absolute worst of all, the cheeriness. why people this time of year cannot seem to tear those sickeningly giddy grins off their faces, sehun does not know, but he hates it. whilst everyone is happy, he stays in garage. whilst he stays in his garage, he distracts himself from the prospects of love. you might think this is all some silly game sehun likes to play, the it's-never-gonna-happen attitude, but it really couldn't be anything but. he seriously resents the possibility of ever being so excessively delusional again. 

oh sehun especially hates spring. spring is when the flowers bloom, the birds come out to sing overly loud melodies in his window at 6am, and where couples stroll the town hand-in-hand like it's some kind of tantalizing joke. chanyeol and baekhyun never fail to tease him about it either. they're the ultimate reason he really hates spring. all because of that one april fool's day, a year after they revamped their relationship, they thought it would be a good idea to surprise oh sehun by breaking into his apartment with the same old damn spare key chanyeol borrowed. and almost literally fucked on his bed. 

but no one talks about that anymore. at least he hopes.

oh sehun hates summer. all he knows beneath the weight of a car balanced by the uncertainty of elevation jacks is heat and sweat and grease and...ugh. everything is dirty. and summer, old shitty summer, enhances the sun that shines down on the garage and heats it up to an unendurable temperature. he nearly falls out of breath, even with the garage doors open to somewhat lessen the blistering heat. but not even the huge fans johnny ordered just for the occasion could assist. it sucks. but just like every other time he must remind himself of the same morals, it's his job. 

oh sehun hates fall. even though it seems to be the most peaceful of all the seasons, the one where he and his friends used to do stupid things around halloween in and get in trouble for, he still doesn't like it. fall, fall is the time where he reprimands himself for ever falling as stupidly as he did. fall. just the name reminds him that he, indeed, fell for someone he's only met once. he doesn't believe in that "love at first sight" kind of shit, not a chance. he cannot believe he did something as stupid as that. that's exactly why he hates it. because the leaves are like him; they fall from the trees with the raindrops. just like he fell for someone else when the emotional rainstorm of a lifetime hit he and his friends. the leaves can't help it, he can. 

oh sehun hates every millennium, every century, every decade, every year, every month, and every season all the same. 

he hates every season like he hates the seasons of the dramas he's forced to watch. such as the same one he's being threatened to be handcuffed to a chair if he doesn't watch.

"d-don't you just,"--sniffle--"hate how jan-di is constantly rejecting,"--sniffle--"jihoo, even when he's always there for h-her,"--sniffle--"and how jun-pyo acts so r-rude to her,"--sniffle--"even when he's in love with her?!"

sehun notes something inside his head: luhan is a very, _very_ emotional person. and while that may be, nothing is worse than a crying pregnant person and an extremely emotionally unstable soccer player on his right, a slightly emotional-for-more-than-one-reason giant of a father on his left, and nowhere to look forward to than the television.

"i know!" baekhyun cries. "poor jihoo. first seohyun, then jan-di! i swear that if he were here right now, you can forget my last name was ever park!" he adds at the same chanyeol bites his lip to suppress a painful and slightly nervous groan.

sehun sits in the middle of it, eyes boring into the tv like everything will just disappear if he stares hard enough. and it's now that sehun knows that he should always listen to baekhyun's lectures about getting enough rest so there isn't a repeat of this. he prays to god there's not. 

the mechanic's face remains devoid of any emotions because he's barely focused on what's happening in the story, just on the image the screen casts. his broad shoulders are more than sore from staying stiff and unmoving, making his torso the infamous "pizza boy" formation, as both baekhyun and chanyeol have labeled it. his muscles are so firm within his arms, both from the work he does tirelessly on a daily basis and by the fear that moving will only cause more emotional uproar, and he can't seem to let himself succumb to leisure. 

don't get him wrong. it's not the drama, it's not just boys over flowers, a broadcast he's seen countless times and never once cried over, it's just the discomfort in being surrounded by emotion all 360 when you barely feel any yourself. 

"ugh--this is what i hate about dramas! they always give me the feels, and not the good kind!" baekhyun pouts and grab the remote just as more credits roll across the screen. they do this nearly every day, when the kids have gone to bed, and there's an immeasurable supply of times where sehun's come to the inn just for dinner and not for stupid rom-coms, and walked in on the married couple making out and sometimes worse. it's funny though the volume of dread one must feel after endlessly binge-watching dramas, baekhyun still keeps the tradition of watching an episode every damn night alive. 

sehun rolls his eyes to himself. how could one pregnant person and one completely normal person be some damn emotional over something as trivial and mundane as a television drama with unpredictably predictable plotlines, naive female leads, rich and presumptuous male leads, and that one neglected co-lead who's love for the female lead is undying, yet ignored?

the television goes blank with the light of the room, with the hood of unbothered-ness on sehun's face. 

"well," baekhyun sighs. "we'll finish it tomorrow. all four of us." and oh, how horrible that sounds. how awful it feels to have to unwillingly watch a show he wishes he didn't have to watch again. he knows for a fact that baek, like nearly everyone else in south korea including himself, has watch boys over flowers too many times to count. so why was baekhyun forcing him to do this? "gee, i'm tired. aren't you, chanyeollie? those little monsters make me so tired."

fun fact: it was only hours ago that park baekhyun was practically assaulting sehun over calling his children "demons", and baekhyun barely left the couple's bedroom today due to back pain. 

chanyeol doesn't respond, only stares off into space and occasionally blinks. right then and there is it only obvious that chanyeol zoned out after hearing the words "you can forget my last name was ever park". 

baekhyun reaches across sehun and smacks chanyeol on the shoulder, an evident form of anger morphing his expression into a terrifying one. 

"park chanyeol!"

chanyeol snaps out of his stupor, a little disoriented and very confused as he sees everyone in the room staring at him, baekhyun with forcefully hopeful eyes, luhan with starry eyes of perplexity and puzzlement, and sehun with no emotion at all. "w-what?"

"i said, _aren't you tired_?" 

once again, the giant looks confused. if wide eyes are enough to indicate shock, then that, the fidgeting of insanely long fingers, and the slack jaw that continuously emits the same " _uhhhhhhh_ " is enough of a dead giveaway that park baekhyun, a ruthless, tireless, merciless matchmaker who never seems to stray far from trouble, has planned something that park chanyeol has no fucking idea about. chanyeol is confounded. 

but then that snaps. 

"oh! y-yes!" he yelps (well, yelps as high as a baritone can) as he jolts forward. "very tired. exhausted. fatigued to an indescibable extent!" 

baekhyun's eyes narrow into slits. "right, well, let's go to bed. i'm sure you must be as tired as i am, maybe more," the impregnated spits out, his voice akin to that of something devilish. "follow me." he ushers chanyeol off the couch and hurriedly up the stairs, most likely muttering the words _good job, park. you almost blew it._ to which chanyeol would respond with _are you forgetting your surname is also park?_ and then baekhyun would halt his movements and say _do you really want to mess with me right now? i've carried all nine billion of your children, and you've been automatically indebted to me since baby number one. you run by my command._ after that, baekhyun would hike the rest of the remaining steps with a little difficulty from baby number five, whilst chanyeol stays behind and whispers so lowly _well, in bed, you run by my command._ so that baekhyun won't find out and he won't go to sleep just to never wake up again. 

sehun's sure the only reason baekhyun hasn't killed chanyeol yet is because he knows he cannot father four kids and be ready to pop with another one alone. he has not a clue how they manage with how they fight like cats and dogs, but at the end of the day, it's always the _i love you_ that saves them. 

"well then..." luhan murmurs, looking perturbed. 

sehun leans back. he knows baekhyun is listening, so it would be no use trying to get off of the couch and go upstairs to his own room, or even leave this place he's essentially being held hostage in. "don't worry, it's always like this." it's not. it just had to be this way when two strangers (read: rich people) broke down in their town on the night of a blizzard and sehun's occupation just happens to be a mechanic with a tow truck, so it may have been a coincidence from the beginning, like all good things that happen in this town, but now it's most definitely not. park baekhyun found a loophole, like he does in every other situation he can mosey his way into. "baekhyun's emperor and chanyeol's his slave."

"always?" luhan throws him a glance, the dried tears on his face that are shining in the light of the lamp catching the focus of sehun's peripherals.

sehun clicks his tongue. "always." he pats his jean-clad thighs, recognizing the greasy residue of oil coating his hands. he longs to take a shower. "so, dramas, huh?" he asks randomly, knowing that luhan feels uncomfortable. he does too, he would say if he were honest, but in the pursuit of pleasing his friend to finally escape the wrath of this place, he'll take any chance he can get. if luhan feels comfortable, baekhyun feel satisfied, thus sehun is relieved of his restraints.

luhan shrugs. "i guess. there's not lots to do when you're on a plane, flying all over the country." sehun swears he's heard the same thing come from chanyeol. "so, you don't cry, huh?"

sehun shrugs as well, a small, barely existent chuckle causing his shoulders to elevate. "now, where did you get that idea?"

"you're telling me that boys over flowers doesn't make you cry?" the soccer player asks, an incredulous look on his face. he takes sehun's blank face as a no. "what? how?!"

"it's just not that sad, i guess," sehun replies, still not looking at luhan even though the deer-like male has long turned to him. "and i'm not an emotional person. you don't really have time to be when every day is wracked with the same damn inevitable stress." the mechanic inhales, cracking his knuckles as if emphasizing his hard work. 

"it doesn't matter if you're emotional or not, boys over flowers is plain devastating!" luhan refutes, using his hands to gesture how "big" of a deal it is to him. "they break up a shit-ton of times, jun-pyo's mother is insufferable, poor jihoo's just constantly getting heartbroken, jan-di doesn't know who the hell to trust, and jun-pyo's faced with the burden of carrying shin hwa group after his father dies? what's at all good about that? that's what i thought, nothing!"

"i don't really have time for crying, i told you!" sehun defends somewhat weakly. 

"everyone has time to be emotional, what are you talking about? being a mechanic can't be that hard," luhan argues with a scoff and a shake of his head. 

the mechanic looks at him in disgust. perhaps it's the first real evident emotion to mar his face tonight. "c-can't be that hard? it's hard as hell."

"oh, sure, it is." luhan rolls his eyes.

"i'd like to see you try, soccer boy! with all your youth league teammates, right?" sehun objects mockingly, the telltale rise of his volume and harshness, although he is still whisper-shouting, unveiling his feelings. is it real anger? real disagreement? is it even there? "what do you do all day? run up and down a soccer field with a ball to kick? play around like children with nothing better to do?" 

the soccer player gasps. "how did you...?" he trails off when he sees sehun's eyebrow cock in knowledge of what words are yet to come. "i do more than that!" 

"oh, yeah?" sehun says. "then why's that all we see on television, huh? how am i supposed to believe that you do anything other than run around on a field all day if that's all i see on the screen?"

luhan's expression is a mix of fury and dumbfoundedness. "and what about you? just coming to pick up me and my manager like a good civilian would doesn't make you special. nothing too significant about spouting off a bunch of words i don't understand. where's your proof?" 

"proof?" sehun laughs. oh, if only he could provide his proof. if only he could drag luhan the stupid famous soccer player he simply cannot believe he used to have a huge crush on, much less be in love with, to his garage! how has he been cursed with the idea that luhan's innocent facade was cute and nice, when he just got a whole ass preview of the other side. "you want proof? damn it, if you want proof, you better go ask baek if i can finally leave this fucking place! i'd give you all the proof you want if i could get the hell out of here!" 

"and i would give you all the proof you want if i actually had something to work with," luhan argues, crossing his arms. he can't believe this guy. is he really the same guy who spilt coffee on his favorite shirt six years ago? is he really the same one that turned red when luhan told that it way more than okay, that as long as he got off him and bought him another coffee, they'd be fine. luhan questions if time weathers people too, but then again, it's not like he knew sehun at all. it's not like he ever knew anything about him other than what his abandoned passport (yes, the one dropped when he bent down to pick his wallet back he before he walked away from luhan at the airport) told him, which wasn't really much. it's not like he liked sehun. like he thought about him. like he ever loved sehun from first sight, how could he? how could he, even though he did?

"what's that?" sehun asks. "a soccer ball is a whole damn lot easier to work with than the tools it takes to fix a car, to know the part every damn car needs, to even know the engineering of a vehicle just by the model, no? i get my hands dirty everyday, the only thing you get dirty are your cleats, and sometimes your tacky little uniform, right?"

luhan gasps once again, taken completely aback by the nerve and audacity of this man to tell him those sick words straight to his face. "excuse me?! you lay under a car all day, your hands getting dirty is nothing compared to running at least 10 miles every fucking game now, is it? sweating your ass off for at least three hours, do you know what that's like? don't think you do. practicing day and night?"

"oh, please," sehun drawls. "when folks' vehicles breakdown for even the smallest reasons, even just for overheating, guess who's called to the occasion? me. guess who endures people everyday who don't even know what's wrong with their car and just make a bunch of stupid sounds to try to imitate it? me. there's times where it's 3am and i'm asleep, but no, if someone just has something as simple as a flat tire, it's oh's automotive garage every damn time!"

luhan goes to retort, but ends up wide-eyed when the light is suddenly flicked on and their gazes shoot across the room to where joonseok stands staring at them stupidly. "can you two keep it down, please? enough of your senseless arguing, i need my beauty sleep. and, luhan, you better get the hell on up to your room. we have practice tomorrow at seven until four, but i need you up by six-thirty. if you want to do this, you better practicing your best." the man shuts off the light as abrubtly as he'd turned it on, leaving them to settle the dispute in the dimness of a lamp. 

they have no clue how he heard, but they weren't able to rouse any of chanyeol and baekhyun's hyperactive children, so that's somewhat the positive outcome of the argument.

sehun takes the time to gather himself before deciding it'd be better to walk away from this without another word. after all, they say that if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. sehun's not usually one to abide by that piece of advice, but now he doesn't think he has any other choice if he wants to walk away from this without blood being shed. 

"and, oh?" fucking luhan just had to call for him. "for somebody who isn't very emotional, you sure get angry pretty easily." 

sehun pauses mid-step, his tiptoe just landing on the next step by a fraction of a millimeter. his shoulders rise and fall with fury, his eyes close in as he feels the need to retort right then and there, he goes to open his mouth--but he stops. because luhan is not worth it. luhan should not be able to get under his skin. he is a mechanic, he's tough alongside the material of vehicles and moving objects alike, he is not one to back down to some famous, rich soccer player.

so he breathes. he stops, rethinks everything, and in that time he has to fixate his foot completely on the step, he calms himself. the only words that leave his lips are the words, "fuck you."

"you can kiss my ass," luhan grits out angrily as he remains in the same position on the couch. 

sehun simpers, turning to the male who glowers at him. "don't worry, sweetheart, i will. and you'll fucking love it." and that's all he says before he walks away from the person he cannot believe he might've loved. how stupid was it of him to even believe that? 

luhan clenches his jaw, being left with no words to say. how dumb was it of him to think that love can form in one meeting, one meeting where you didn't even learn each other's names by anything other than a stray passport and a television broadcast?

one thing is for sure. no matter how much they "loved" each other without knowing it, it's no longer there. 

_i hate you, oh sehun._

_don't worry, i hate you too._


	4. Under the Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of my fav chapters ever for whatever reason!! love ya and thank you for reading, sorry for any typos <3

"uncle sehun..." 

another voice scoffs. "you know uncle sehun, soomin, he's not going to wake up like that." 

"shut up, junnie. uncle sehun...?" tiny fingers tap his shoulder, making sehun stir in his sleep. "wake up." 

"this isn't going to work."

"uncle sehun, it's soominnie. please wake up, my daddy wants to see you..."

"just give up already, soo--"

"UNCLE SEHUN!"

said mechanic sits up rapidly, pulling him from his previous (now good and gone) state of relaxation and sending a rather disoriented state to him. "w-what?" two kids, however, one a small little girl with droopy eyes who snuggles a stuffed animal close to her body, still dressed in her long and pink nightgown, while the other is a certain wide-eyed nephew of his who's trying to stifle his laughter behind his hand, sit next to him on the bed. "what's going on?"

soomin giggles, planting her tiny hands on sehun's thighs before crawling into his lap. "daddy told us wake you up."

sehun raises a brow, curling an arm around the girl and pouting at her. "like this?" he asks. "it would've been better if you didn't scream in my ear, you little munchkin." sehun gropes at the little girl's sides, methodically working his slender but strong fingers over her ribs, making her screech out in laughter. 

"uncle sehun, s-stop it!" she cries out. "p-please!"

"nope," sehun says. "it's only fair that i get you back for waking me up like you're some kind of alarm clock, you little monster. you deserve it!" he continues tickling her, her older brother watching in pure amusement before amusement turns to horror when sehun drags him into it too. "not so fast, young man! you were involved too!" and he mercilessly tickles them both until soomin is hitting her fist repeatedly against his chest even though it's all put to vain, and yejun is nearly pissing in his pants while also trying to fight back. unfortunately for them (and luhan's pointless rant about mechanics not working hard, because for sehun, it's all in the muscles), sehun is capable of holding them down. 

the only thing it takes for sehun to cease all movements is one brush against his morning wood. _shit,_ he mouthes since he can't say the words out loud. 

"you okay, sehunnie?" the little girl asks, confused as to why her favorite uncle out of many abruptly halted his onslaught of childish "punishment". 

sehun nods. "yeah, let's go downstairs, hm? uncle sehun has to use the bathroom, so you guys can go first." two bodies crawl off him, panting heavily because of the laughing and squealing they did, and soon exit the room like he'd hoped they would. 

now, sehun has some business to take care of. 

"roads are clear," chanyeol informs when sehun makes his way down the stairs after dealing with his problems. he's never been one to walk it off, so he thought he'd kill two birds with one stone because he had to brush his teeth anyway. 

"really?" the younger asks, finishing putting on his belt. 

chanyeol nods. "come sit." he pats the seat next to his. sehun's eyebrows furrow because it appears the giant's the only one sitting at the table besides the 2-year-old in his lap who's gurgling incoherently about who knows what with his hand in his mouth. donghyun's been having a hell of a harder time speaking than his siblings ever have despite having said a first word. chanyeol and baekhyun plan to have that fixed before the next baby is born.

"thanks," the younger says when the father hands him a bagel. it must be what's left over from breakfast this morning, as they seemingly had it earlier than sehun's waking up. "so, when can i get out of here?"

"anytime you want." the giant shrugs.

"but what time will baekhyun actually let me leave this hellhole? i have to get that soccer brat and his annoying manager's car fixed so they can get the heck out of this town. i think it's obvious that if famous people end up staying here too long, they get attached," sehun presses with a mocking glance at his best friend with his last words. 

the giant rolls his eyes. "shut up, oh. baekhyun misses you being around so much, you know that?"

"i come here, like, three days a week."

"used to," chanyeol corrects. "muffin?" sehun nods, accepting the bundle of carbohydrates and stuffing it in his mouth a with a muffled _thank you._ "you're welcome. anyway, he misses you a lot. he remembers the times when you didn't just come over to eat dinner and actually stayed to hang out. i'm sorry he's being this way, but it's understandable that he misses you a lot." chanyeol casts him a sympathetic yet somehow pleading look. "he worries for you, you know that well. that's why he's been trying to keep you here since the accident."

sehun groans. "chanyeol, come on, man. we've talked about this. i'm fine."

"i know you are, but baekhyun still thinks of you as the kid he had to watch over in high school," the elder tells him. "he still looks at you as the kid who fixed everything. baekhyun has so much gratitude because of that day, did you know that? it's because of you that i go to bed next to him every night and we have four, almost five, children to raise together." 

sehun sighs, folding his hands across the table and leaning back. he bites his lip, looking up at his best friend the way he used to when the elder encouraged him to do actually do his homework in high school. with frustrated eyes. "what do you want me to do?"

chanyeol exhales, taking the words as a sensation of relief. "just spend less time at work. he cares about you, too, so he wants to make sure you're doing well. and if you have enough time, drop by more. it doesn't even have to more days than you already come, but...longer. have actual conversation and tell us how you're doing." chanyeol throws a glance down at the boy in his lap. "i know i sound like a dad-friend right now, but we care about you as if you were one our children." sehun internally cringes. "and while we know you're work-oriented, you need to get the past out of your head and maybe open up to...some new people who are temporarily living in our house at the moment." 

that's where the sentiment ends. sehun's gaze hardens and he clenches his jaw. "not much longer will they be temporarily living in your home. i plan to get them out of here by tomorrow. where are they, by the way? and baekhyun?"

"doctor's," chanyeol says. sehun makes a confused expression. "baekhyun has an appointment today. he's due in january, but i don't think baby number five can stay cooped up in there so long. luhan went with him and they only left while you were upstairs using the bathroom, the twins and yejun went with them since jongin and kyungsoo are in jeju and can't be our resident babysitters. said they wanted to get away for a while, but they're just lucky they only have one kid. seriously though, dude, what took so long in the bathroom?" 

"can't a man use the bathroom without other people questioning his habits?" sehun inquires in retaliation. 

chanyeol just laughs. "seemingly, no. but luhan went with him because he wanted to "feel what it's like to not live in the big city" and i have no idea where that joonseok guy is. i think he's upstairs, though. the only reason i'm not at that appointment is because baekhyun yelled at me about christmas lights, so i have to stay home and untangle everything before i put them up this week. i don't know when, though." 

"'feel what it's like to not live in the big city', my ass," sehun comments under his breath before he realizes he said that out loud. "oh, sorry. i'll watch my language next time and all." 

chanyeol narrows his eyes. "it's not that, man," he replies. "what's with you and that luhan guy? i thought you loved him--"

"shh!" sehun scolds, slapping a hand over the giant's mouth, which gets him a bewildered look from chanyeol and relentless giggles from donghyun, the baby in his lap. sehun removes his palm from chanyeol's mouth when he does a half-assed job of patrolling the area and making sure no one was there to hear. "don't just stay stuff like that, dude. besides, no, i don't love him."

"but you used to?"

sehun huffs and crosses his arms over his chest when the other laughs. it was chanyeol and baekhyun's wedding night that both he and chanyeol got shitfaced drunk and the younger ended up revealing that his crush on the soccer player he'd supposedly gotten over a few months ago, after baekhyun's words struck him harshly, wasn't actually any old crush. he drunkenly spouted off about being so fucking in love with someone he's only talked to once and seen on television countless times, but drunk words are sober thoughts. it was stupid. but he's over that now. now, he hates luhan. 

"fine," he grumbles. "but not anymore. he's abominable now."

chanyeol's eyebrows furrow. "why's that?"

"you didn't hear?" sehun questions, surprised. "weren't you and baekhyun spying on us last night like you always do when you 'inconspicuously' set me up with someone who may, which i assure you will never happen, end up being more than a friend?"

"uh, no...we sort of passed out after baekhyun jumped me--" 

"shit!" sehun interrupts, slapping his hands over to ears to muffle the giant's next words. "that's disgusting, man. i didn't need to know that."

chanyeol chuckles. "come on, it's just sex. i know you're a virgin and all, but--" he interrupts himself with a laugh when he sees sehun's icy glare be thrown toward him. "but you can't just ignore it. we're adults, we're going to talk about it all the time." 

sehun cringes. "i know, but like you said yourself, i'm practically one of your children. it's like hearing your dad talk about having sex with your mom, it's horrible." he shivers at the thought. 

the elder just laughs. "but anyway, no. we didn't hear anything. but what went so wrong that he's so 'abominable' now?"

sehun gives the elder a blank stare before ranting off about what happened last night. how luhan said what he said, so sehun just had to say something back. he told him in great detail about how luhan said that what he does isn't even remotely impressive skill-wise, which infuriated sehun. he hated that something that the other could get him so angry by something as simple as those words while he would only be mildly affected if it had been someone else. he guesses that if you have two things, one that used to be important to him and one that never stopped, and you used them against him, it only has one outcome. rage. 

sehun knows what luhan meant by "kissing his ass", but sehun twisted his words so that that stupidly cute deer guy would turn red and misinterpret the words the way sehun so riskily meant them. trust sehun, there won't be any ass-kissing. in either context.

how dare luhan say that his job is not that hard? that his rescuing of them was just mere charity, and nothing else? how dare he ask for proof when all the proof is in the fact that sehun owns that fucking garage and he never stops working? how can he compare sehun's exhausting job to "laying under a car all day and getting his hands dirty" when what he does for others is way more important than that? 

"so he insulted your job?" chanyeol asks a good, long minute after sehun ends his heated tirade. 

"yeah," sehun answers shortly. 

"and you insulted his in return?"

"...yeah." 

"well, that was quite asshole-ish of you," chanyeol says, shocking sehun. 

the mechanic gasps. "what the fuck?" the kid in chanyeol's lap won't say anything, sehun just knows it. "i thought you were on my side! you're one of my best friends, man!" 

"i'm not on anybody's side," chanyeol denies. "i have four and half kids, do you think i can take the sides of one of them? i can't. so, i'm not taking your side because that would be unfair to luhan."

"but he's the one who said i don't do my damn job! who cares about luhan?!" sehun is even more angered by the thought of his best friend betraying him like that. by the elder not defending him like a best friend should. this is exactly why he should spend more time at jongin's house, because despite being scared to death of long-lived post-pregnancy kyungsoo, having a kid never changed jongin at all. jongin still does dumb stuff with sehun all the time. 

"right," chanyeol affirms. "but you also insulted his job. i've seen those soccer players and you have too, they sweat buckets and work their asses off to win, so you can't possibly say that they don't work hard. i'm just saying, it was a hypocritical of you to be offended when you also insulted his job." the elder looks as serious as sehun's ever seen him, tone authoritative and eyes promising. but sehun cannot get himself to care that what chanyeol said was true, rather that the father was calling him, oh sehun, the hardworking, distant, and downright aloof oh sehun, a _hypocrite_.

"they play some damn game all day long, chanyeol!" sehun defends himself. "i work so that people can get places everyday, and they just play games all day. how can you say that?"

chanyeol sighs. "while that may be true, you have no right to be offended by his words. had you not said something else in return, i would understand, but you did say something and wronged him in return. don't you think you should both apologize?"

"a-apologize?" sehun asks bitterly. "not a chance. if anyone's going to apologize, it's going to be him. not me. he started it, he's going to end it." 

"you'd be the bigger man if you apologized first, you know."

sehun scoffs. "i don't even know him. in a week, he'll be back in seoul or wherever they were heading to, and i'll still be here, working _hard._ there's no reason to apologize to someone who won't remember you in, say, two weeks. someone who never remembered you in the first place."

the elder shakes his head and says, "i can't believe you're being like this."

"like what?" sehun asks exasperatedly. "like someone who knows first hand what it's like they leave and you never get them back?" he says it despite knowing that full well that he shouldn't have done so. 

"no," chanyeol denies seriously. "like a child." 

the younger just grins indignantly, not even surprised at this point. "don't worry, park. i'll be on my way out, because you've already got enough of those." 

"like a fucking child, my ass.." sehun mutters, throwing all his clothes in the bag that they came in. "he's gotten everything he's ever wanted back all because of me, and he has the audacity to call me a child? he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"don't do this, sehun," chanyeol calls from the doorway. sehun tenses. "at least wait until baekhyun gets home so you can say goodbye to him and the kids. you don't even have to look at luhan." he sounds somewhat sorry for what he said, but the younger knows that inside, chanyeol feels no remorse. he does not feel genuinely sorry for what he said. maybe for the way he said it, but not what his words actually meant. 

sehun sneers. "should've thought about that before you accused me acting like a child, park. i've just always been a kid to you two, haven't i? even when i inherited my father's business and put all my shit into being like him." 

"look, i'm sorry it sounded like that, i never meant to be so harsh with you. but you do need to take my words into consideration before you--" 

"before what, chanyeol?" sehun questions rudely. "before i look even more like a kid to you guys? before you begin taking responsibility for me like i don't have my own life again? i'm 24, i don't need you guys' input anymore, got it?" 

"no. before you regret it," chanyeol speaks firmly. 

sehun stops, bag slung over his shoulder. he glares at chanyeol who still stands there, holding his baby. "the only thing i'll ever regret was falling in love with someone i didn't know anything about, just like a child would. other than that, i'm no child. now, let me through. tell baek i'm sorry, but i have work to do."

chanyeol sighs, shoulders dropping before stepping out of the way and letting sehun brush past him. 

the only thing chanyeol regrets is letting him go. 

sehun stares at the black, glossy BMW 840d Coupe sitting in the garage. he hopes it doesn't take long to fix, especially not after having sat outside with sehun's truck for three days in the snow and frigid air. he won't deny that it's a nice car. a really nice one, but to think luhan and his manager, despite claiming that it was a rental car, were the ones using it, does not settle nicely within him. he hates that luhan knew what he was talking about when he mentioned the check engine light. he hates it, absolutely abhorred the mere idea of it. 

grasping his pliers, sehun closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. he needs to forget about luhan if he wants to get this done, and the faster he gets this done, the quicker he doesn't have to see the latter ever again. _just forget_ , he tells himself. _just forget and get to work. he who we do not speak of does not belong in that beautiful mind of yours. time to show him that you are a hard worker and you do more in an hour than he can do in a day._

don't misunderstand, sehun is not conceited. he's only trying to convince himself that chanyeol's nasty words are not true. 

approaching the car that's worth more than his apartment and his truck combined, sehun pops the hood skillfully. it's something he's always known how to do. cars were made for him since he was born. it was his preordained fate to memorize every last anything for vehicles. the mechanic grew up watching his father do the exact same thing as if it were a skill that could be perfected, and sehun's not sure he ever saw his father make the incorrect diagnosis. he grew up idolizing his father, letting the man teach him. until that one day in high school that dad wasn't there to teach sehun anymore. the man was gone. ironically killed in a car crash on the day of sehun's graduation, where he was waiting for his father and mother to show up. but neither did, and he ended up spending the night in the hospital at just 18 years old, waiting for news. it was only his mother who survived despite being extremely injured, but his father was gone. only back then did sehun finally understand what his father meant when he used to say _you better enjoy life, son, because sometimes you can get a little bit over the speed limit. if you go too fast, something bad can happen. and in the end, you'll always end up at zero._

because just like what the man had warned him of, sehun spent so much time with his friends, with taking care of baekhyun and trying to find chanyeol, and he went too fast. he went so fast that on the day that was supposed to be one of the best of his life, something bad happened and his father, the man who should've appreciated more for teaching him everything he knows, was taken from his life in a snap. consequently, sehun ended back up at zero. 

he thought that carrying on what his dad had started was the only thing he could do to make up for that mistake. 

shaking the thought from his mind and consumed with guilt, sehun turns back to his work. he examines the chaos living beneath the hood; the engine, the transmission, the radiator, the battery, and many wires of various significance to the function of the vehicle. to the naked eye, it would appear that nothing is wrong with it. but that's the worst sort of thing, since the most difficult problems to solve live underneath the skin, the flesh, and the bones. in this case, problems live beneath the body and frame of the car, and that's what's concerning. that means sehun has to dig deep to find out what's going on with it. or maybe not, sometimes things just happen.

sehun regrets ever having passed out in the parks' driveway now, since what's under the hood then could've given him a better indicator as to what is malfunctioning within the car. 

sehun knows it's the engine. it just has to be, or else the check engine light would not have been on that night, according to luhan's untrustworthy statement. there's many reasons as to why the check engine light would be, so may damn reasons that sehun has to consider as the culprit in his mind. he's especially concerned since the company the two travelers (that's right, that's all they are) supposedly rented this car from could've handed them the vehicle with the check engine light on, which they know is against code to do. or maybe, since that joonseok guy and all his absurdity was the one driving, he'd unknowingly done something to the car. but sehun doubts that. or maybe, sehun wishes, it was just a mere coincidence.

sehun observes every possible reason. all of them, until he decides to test something. 

he walks over to the car, looking through the window to secure that the key is inside, but not in the ignition. the mechanic gets in the car, glad the garage door's open because he has to perform a test. 

and after he completes the test, he confirms his theory. after putting the car in neutral with the door open to fan out the exhaust that a push to gas in that gear would cook up, he could see it in the rear-view. black exhaust smoke, an indicator that there's a failing catalytic convertor, an engine defect. usually, these are due to ignoring other symptoms like gas caps and oxygen censors. that only makes him smile, however, because replacing those will take three hours at most. so those two will not be here, here in this town, any longer than another day. 

feeling his chest bubble up with excitement sehun, exits the car, slamming the door closed behind him because he does not care that it's luxury, or that now that he really thinks about it, that 'rental car' excuse could've just been luhan's cover for when he had his mask on. then, he just had to go and expose himself to baekhyun and chanyeol and sehun, too. 

but that elation dies down immediately when he steps in something. holding his breath, he curiously bends down, placing just tip of his fingers in the puddle that runs beneath the car, and his breath finally comes out shakily. painfully, sehun stands back up and nearly cries when he smells it. because he knows exactly what that is, what it does, and why it's happening. 

nothing good ever comes when there's transmission fluid leaking from the car and now there's a faint burning smell in the air. how had sehun not caught it earlier? earlier, when he was celebrating the fact that in a day, the luhan and joonseok would be gone. but that party's over. 

sehun closes his eyes and wipes the fluid on his hand on his jeans. he knows this, hates it, understands exactly what's wrong and what it takes to fix it.

it's a failing transmission. leaking fluid and causing a burning smell. it takes a completely new transmission to actually throw those two out of this town. but the worst part...oh, the worst part is that it takes days, nearly a fucking week to replace. 

sehun was right when he thought that more problems are evident under the skin than are actually obvious from appearance. because he's dealing with one right now.

scratch, make that two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy bday to my neo baby boy johnny (and me lmao but i don't care about me)!! let's all hope he's doing well!!


	5. Strawberry Shortcake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry for any mistakes!! <3

one thing that luhan has always been was nice. 

whether it was helping his classmate who fell off the swings and scraped her leg, or willingly handing his notes to his peers in college because it was something he wanted to help them with. he's never given himself a reason to hate anyone despite what they had done to him at some point in his life. 

he's always been one to say 'please' and 'thank you' when necessary, addressed his seniors with the correct honorifics, was always the kid his teachers chose as the best candidate to show the new kid around school, and became captain of his soccer team because he was athletic and willing to help others learn. he's always been 'that guy', the one who's friends with everyone despite being quite shy, the guy who had girls and boys alike at his sides all throughout high school and college, even ones he found a little too showy for his liking, but still upheld his reputation as respectful and polite. 

in all, you could never say that luhan's a rude person. sure, he has his fair share of objections to the people above him, and he's most likely talked back to joonseok one too many times, but you could never call him that. 

luhan doesn't hate anyone. 

unless you're 24, taller than the eiffel tower, have black hair that brings out your eyes, a deep voice, and you're hot as fuck. if you do, and your name starts with an 's' and ends with an 'ehun', he does hate you.

"so that mechanic guy called." 

luhan just keeps on eating, only capturing the keywords his manager babbles. he's learned enough about the man to know that joonseok does not cut things short. he wants full, completely detailed explanations on everything. he even insists on ordering his own food because no one seems to do it right. 

"he was talking about the engine light thingy you told him about..." 

the soccer player just keeps on nodding, wishing the salad he speared with his fork was actually a glob of steak. he wishes that the disgusting spinach smoothie (otherwise known as the 'healthy greens' drink) he swallows it down with was actually a cup of soda. 

"how did i never know about that? i wonder if it's ever been on in my car before..." 

the 27-year-old leans back in his seat, scrunching his nose at the taste of balsamic vinegar on the tip of his tongue. it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, quite literally, and has him reaching for the water bottle he keeps in his bag for special occasions like this. ones where the only other drink he has looks like it came from somewhere inside jabba the hutt and he needs to wash something else down.

"anyway, he says it's transmission issues, which can take almost a week to fix--" 

he chokes then, not on any of the food he has to eat in order "maintain a healthy life and perfect physique", but because of the words. his breath nearly runs out as he feels the water he swallowed seconds ago begin to resurface before he gulps and it dies down again. "w-what," he coughs out, looking up to see a few patrons eyeing him suspiciously from over his hat. he clears his throat and says, "what are y-you talking about?" 

"were you not listening?" joonseok asks with a glare. 

luhan shakes his head. "no, i was too busy trying to swallow this horrid meal." 

"but it's part of your--" 

" _guide to living a healthy life as a famous soccer player_. yeah, yeah, i've heard it a hundred times already." 

joonseok rolls his eyes. "anyway, he said that the transmission has a failing catalytic converter and is leaking transmission fluid in puddles. he also said the cause of the severe damage might have been because of other neglected issues. we have a week and a half left to sign the contract and get out of here, but he says the fix will take at least a week. he didn't sound too pleased either." 

luhan cringes at the way the man explained it, using words he probably doesn't even understand. "don't those things take, like, i don't know, four days to fix?" he chews quickly, swallows too, not because of the vinegar, rather the revelation. does joonseok think he's happy about having to stay here with oh sehun too? what if the younger male purposefully causes his car to malfunction and he and his manager go kaboom?

"i think they do," joonseok answers. "but you know me, i don't know anything about cars. he said it'll take that long because of the severe damage. have you been ignoring it all?" 

luhan shakes his head. "no, i just don't drive it. how am i supposed to know what's wrong with my car if i don't drive it?" 

"why wouldn't you drive it? it's a perfectly nice car, luhan. it's the best i've ever driven." 

the soccer player sighs. "i just don't like it." 

joonseok raises a brow. "are you sure this isn't about your little strike?" he asks. luhan scoffs and looks away. "listen, in a month's time, you'll be halfway across the world, okay? why are you suddenly doing this now? you have the opportunity of a lifetime and you're here, wanting to feel what it's like to not have cameras constantly taking pictures of you." 

"what makes you think that? what makes you so confident that that's what i want to be here for?" luhan retaliates. "i haven't said anything about it." 

joonseok rolls his eyes. "wouldn't put it past you." 

luhan closes his eyes and bites his lip, trying to suppress the anger he feels boiling inside of him. "i want to go home." 

"home?" 

"t-the inn. i want to go to the inn. i'm tired from practice and i want to rest up, now let's take a bus and go. unless you want me to leave you here?" 

his manager's face pinches up at his condescending tone. "no. i think i'll go with you. there's no point in eating when there's no one to do it with." 

and just like that, they're leaving the cafe, ignoring the stares that follow them when they step out in the cold. the frigid air prickles at the shell of luhan's ears, the whisper of winter leaving behind the reminder of how cold oh sehun is. 

the winter can only remind luhan of a man he's met a few times, but liked only one out of them all. in all the instances they've encountered one another, sehun has appeared undeniably indifferent, and actually somewhat cryptic, and that makes luhan's head spin whilst trying to figure this man out. was he once a guy who loved someone else, really? could someone else have fallen for him? (well, that's actually a dumb question to ask because luhan must say himself, that it's sort of hard not to fall in love with oh sehun, despite how distant the boy seems to be). or did luhan not know the real oh sehun? 

the boy who helped his best friend make breakfast for them all despite not being to good at it, and the boy who spat malice to his face, were two completely different people. the one who doesn't complain when kids climb all over him and mostly keeps his mouth shut to refrain from saying anything, and the one who was enraged by luhan's sarcastic comment about something as trivial as a job, were also two different people. 

luhan guesses he's met both sides, but he doesn't know either of them too well. he probably won't even get a chance, not when they arrived home last night and found out from chanyeol that sehun had left. it came as a shock to him, and he initially felt guilty whilst thinking it was because of him, which it was probably was, but then felt upset at seeing baekhyun's wide smile disappear in seconds before he excused himself to he and chanyeol's room. 

there was something about oh sehun that had luhan's heart racing and trust him, it wasn't attraction (maybe). it was curiousity about the fact that sehun wasn't just any kind of person, he wasn't any old mechanic, not like luhan said he was. he still feels guilty about saying that, but it's lessened after the younger just had to retaliate. oh sehun, whoever the fuck he was, was obviously not quite who luhan thought he was, and the soccer player can't help but wonder if that's a blessing or a curse. 

when they open the front door, baekhyun is exiting the kitchen with a bright smile. "you're back!" he exclaims, standing the straightest way a pregnant person can. "chanyeol has the kiddos in the backyard. i made strawberry shortcake if anyone would like any." 

joonseok shakes his head. "i better be on my way up, actually. thanks, though," he says and excuses himself, walking up the stairs. 

luhan knows that even though he just ate, what he consumed wasn't really even 'food'. it was just a bunch of plants that were straight out of the ground and thrown into a bowl with vinegar poured on it all. a piece of cake sounds absolutely delectable. "oh, yes please." 

baekhyun grins at him, grabbing his hand and waddling away with him. the smaller's grip is strangely tight and his hand is large with long yet pretty fingers. his hands don't resemble his husband's in the slightest. chanyeol has big, calloused hands that could come from none other than the weathering strings of a guitar, while baekhyun has softer and slimmer hands that he obviously likes to take the advantage of having. 

"sit, sit," the smaller instructs. "i'm just about to finish adding the strawberries and the cream, then you can have a piece." 

there's something about the silence they bask in that doesn't bother luhan. usually, silence for him is, ironically, deafening. he feels like he could hear every thought running through his head when there's nothing to interrupt it, he feels as if he could feel his skin crawl with every pound of his heart, how it beats in his chest and he can feel it like it's in his fingertips.

this silence is so different. it's not exactly silent, actually, there's just no talking going on. the pregnant parent standing at the counter is just humming prettily as he shuffles around the kitchen and decorates the cake that looks absolutely _amazing_. he's careful and deliberate as he spreads dollops of cream across the slices of cake, sporadically adding split strawberries in different places. he makes it look good, easy. 

luhan watches as the inn-owner slices it into sizable pieces of glory. the man smiles at him and sets a plate with a slice down in front of luhan and one of his own. 

"here you are," baekhyun says. "only the best for our first guests." 

"thank you, and we're your first guests?" luhan inquires, grabbing a fork from the basket on the table and digging in. 

"yes, actually. chanyeol and i, we opened only a few weeks ago. but we've been working for a long time. ever since the twins were born and chanyeol got his compensation for all the songs he wrote for the company. he still works for them sometimes, but not much anymore. he bought this place for us on our first anniversary. this house has been...everything to us since we got it. hopefully, though, more people will come after you. i want others to be welcome in my home." 

"i hope more people come here too," luhan says. "you're all so nice, and your children are sweethearts." baekhyun chuckles at that. 

"thank you," the pregnant man replies. "but, luhan..." the taller male looks up to see the pitying eyes of byun baekhyun, apologetic and crestfallen. "look, i'm sorry about what happened. chanyeol told me bout what happened with sehun, about what he said to you, and i just wanted to--" 

"you don't have to apologize," luhan interrupts. "i shouldn't have said anything either. i started it, it was all my fault." 

baekhyun chuckles, shaking his head. "no, i just think sehunnie's a little bit too sensitive lately, especially about his job. i don't know what's going on, but i think i have an idea." 

luhan raises an eyebrow. "if you don't mind, i-i'd like to help. what do you think is going on with him? i mean, i don't know him _at all_ , but i think i want to know what's going on." 

baekhyun smiles nervously. "i'm afraid that won't happen," he says. luhan goes to say something, but baekhyun cuts him off. "the reason being...that sehun is a very private person. he doesn't like people 'meddling' in his business. he lives a very exclusive life and he doesn't like people worrying about him. he...he thinks that people are going to take advantage of things, or that if he gets too close, that person will suddenly be gone. he doesn't like to show it, but he's very sensitive yet hardworking. h-he really deserves more than just me and chanyeol," the carrier laments, a sad smile on his face. 

"if you don't mind me asking, why doesn't he...cry? like, i'm sure he does, just not at the things that most people cry about." 

"sehun has been through a lot. he's always been a victim that's been ignored. there's some stuff i shouldn't tell. he'll probably let you in on his own time, _if he ever does_ , but sehun has definitely been through a lot. but he's always been the person who was there for others despite also being hurt. i think that's what made him so strong. he does cry, like everyone does, but it's rare and the only time i've ever seen it was in high school," baekhyun explains, finishing up the last of his own cake. "he never gives himself the time to cry." 

"chanyeol told me he had his heart broken by someone. he became very distant after a fight. is that why he works so much?" 

baekhyun sighs and looks almost...guilty. "yes," he answers. "yes. someone made a mistake once when they had their own heart broken, and though he was there for them, they hurt him instead. he won't ever tell you this, but he's still very caught up on that argument even though the person that made the mistake has apologized a billion times. he thought he was being stupid by falling in love." 

it's funny, because luhan used to think the same thing. he recalls many nights after the airport that he laid awake, those eyes imprinted in his mind forever. he remembers how they were; dark and cold while the boy was initially approaching him without a care in the world that he was going to topple right over luhan, ones that turned soft when the smaller fell beneath him and tensed. all it took was one look from oh sehun, and luhan was gone. 

but love at first sight isn't a thing, right? at least, that's what everyone's been telling him. to be honest, it sort of (really) hurt to hear that sehun's heart was broken by someone, not quite that someone who found themselves in a situation they never thought they would be in, but another person. and huh, now that luhan thinks about it, that sounds a lot like him, if only that were possible. 

baekhyun sighs. "sehun means a lot to me," he speaks. "he has ever since i met him and he was still somehow taller than me. there's times i wonder how he survives where he works, how he stays cooped up in damn garage all the time and i know it's all my fault. i hate it, too. what i said to him that day, it was so rude of me." 

luhan's face scrunches up in confusion. "what do you mean?" he asks. 

the parent folds his hands in his lap. "around five years ago, my husband and i...we weren't what we are now. we used to be different. he didn't even know about our oldest until he came back home to get away from the idol life. i'm sure you know that part since it became the talk of the country a while back. i'm about to tell you a little bit about sehun, but you can't tell anyone." 

luhan does remember. he remembers a whole volumes of magazines and newspapers being released with park chanyeol's name on them, remembers the online upstir that caused people all over the world to wonder what the hell happened to rapper park chanyeol. amidst nasty circumstances with his company, the rapper later released a conclusion. that's right, a conclusion. a single post on social media that ended his idol-hood forever. there was no apology, probably because park chanyeol was not sorry that he married the person he has loved since the day he met him. luhan's heard of the family matters, but he had no idea what was happening behind closed doors. 

"my husband, my then boyfriend, abandoned me when i was a few weeks pregnant. he had no idea, i had no idea, we were all so very clueless and all that shit. now, this is a story i don't tell a lot of people, but i have the impression that i can trust you, no? can i trust you, luhan?" the smaller questions, crossing his arms over his chest and resting them on his stomach, as if he was trying to appear intimidating when he honestly looked like he was absolutely glowing. 

the taller male smiles. "yeah, you can trust me." was that even trustworthy? 

"good," baekhyun breathes in relief. "anyway, after he left to seoul to become the star he always dreamt of becoming, i found out i was pregnant. i knew, i just knew it from the day i was sick until the day my parents threw me out and told me to go somewhere else. i had many friends who were there for me, even one who let me stay with him the entirety of my pregnancy and a little while after. but sehun, he was definitely the most prominent and important one. his every move was dedicated to finding chanyeol to get some kind of clarification. every time i told him to stop, to just give up, he never did. it was his best friend, my boyfriend, and my baby's father that had left us all.

"that boy was so selfless that he went to seoul for me after we found chanyeol. he even tried to tell him, but chanyeol's company, at the time, was...you know, not the best. chanyeol never found out about our son until he came home. 

"when he did, i didn't want to see him. i ran away from him when i could, but the day he found out about son was the best part. he swore to me that he would be there for me and yejun. and he was. but later on, when it had taken a small, minor relationship with someone else to make me realize my feelings for yeol, i knew he had never let go of his. we...we didn't talk and actually ended up doing the worst possible coping mechanism, and we ended up...y'know-ing.

"a day later, however, he was gone again. i was panicking, scared to death of what happened. that's how our girls were made, because we didn't use protection, and just like i had predicted, i was pregnant again sometime later. sehun calmed me down the day he left, though, he told me i had to be strong and chase after chanyeol, but...i insulted him, i told him he wasn't strong so why should he be lecturing me about being it with the person he was in love with. i also told him so much that wasn't true and he never really let go of it. eventually, i got my boyfriend back, and that's why my surname is park now, but sehun...he never really became sehun again. i ruined oh sehun." 

it's hilarious, completely comical to luhan how words, just simple words about something like love, can tear an entire person apart. trust luhan, he's experienced it first hand and will never have the chance to understand why he was in love with a man whose heart led him to giving luhan another coffee, and why it enraged him so much when he was still blown away by the fact that they met face-to-face _again,_ though they were not on good circumstances.

"the person he loved...chanyeol told me he found himself somewhere he never expected, but what if it means that he knows he loves sehun too--"

baekhyun clicks his tongue. "i'm sorry, luhan. that's a story for another time."

_there probably won't be another time._

baekhyun gathers his plate and fork in one hand, the other resting atop his swollen, protruding stomach, and goes to turn away. 

"wait--"

the pregnant man turns back to look at him inquisitively. 

"yes?"

the soccer player clears his throat. "is he still here--the person sehun loved, i mean--? does he live here? maybe sehun can clear things up with him."

baekhyun's pretty, cherry-red lips curl up into a smile, showcasing bright and white teeth that could probably blind someone. his eyes, they reflect something akin to...mischief? "like yeol said, he found himself in a place he never expected. he's still finding his way. but, luhan," he calls, making the soccer player's eyes zero in on him immediately. "i think he's figuring it out just fine. but i'll see what i can do for you." 

luhan's left to ponder on his words. 

love, luhan figures, like a puzzle, is not just a piece of strawberry shortcake. and with that, luhan finished the rest of his own.


	6. When the Strange Become Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so so so sorry i haven't updated in a while (no that anyone cares lmao). to be honest, school is overwhelming and i keep forgetting that i posted this here. anyways, sorry for mistakes, love ya!!

in all honesty, oh sehun has always been a little strange. it wasn't like the bad kind of strange, the kind of strange where he might consider having sex upside down (if that's even possible), or the one where he made eye contact with people solely with the intentions of making them so uncomfortable that they had to look away (yes, he's thinking of you, johnny seo). just the kind of strange where it keeps people away from him, but mostly by his own choice. 

he's always been strangely tall, considering how his mother just decided to stop measuring him by the time he turned fifteen. oddly quiet, the kind where he appears to be listening to other people while just glancing around and nodding, but he's actually not listening at all, and others automatically assume that's just how he is. he's also always been peculiarly against making friends despite having some. it's mostly because he's not too good at it, again, because of the reasons listed above and some. 

there's just something strange about oh sehun. however, while his peculiarity has always been both a drawback and an advantage, he's very good at recognizing when others are acting strange. and to say that all of his friends, literally _all_ of them, are acting strange is not unusual. 

the mechanic can't tell.

he understands chanyeol and baekhyun, because those two are always weird. there's nothing odd about seeing a curious glance being thrown at chanyeol and baekhyun when they're doing even the slightest normal thing, because they manage to make it complicated and chaotic and mind-jostling, and it's a never-ending circle of pure...delirium. 

then there's jongin and kyungsoo, but they've been off lately. he hasn't seen them in two weeks because they've been stationed in jeju with taeoh. it's a well-deserved vacation, as kyungsoo called it, as those two are always doing something. kyungsoo is the parks' babysitter when he's not yelling at employees at the restaurant he owns, and jongin... well, he never really catches a break. it's either he's teaching lessons at the dance studio taemin owns, or he's holding kyungsoo back from attacking the employees at the restaurant. and in the middle is kim taeoh, easily the calmest child sehun has every encountered. he emanates kyungsoo's powerful nature, his stern stance and sometimes his serious personality, but otherwise, he has jongin's innocence and is an exact replica of the dancer. 

sehun has missed them very much (yes, even kyungsoo despite being terrified of the elder) and wishes they would come back. probably because the park family is becoming more and more normal, with chanyeol becoming your regular dad who takes everything seriously but occasionally uses horrible jokes, and baekhyun who, despite his playful nature and instinct to constantly be loud, is now very serious as well and makes cake almost everyday. he wonders where the hell his best friends have gone.

jongin has not changed one bit. he is still very innocent and willing to help out however he can. he's whipped for his husband and does whatever he says most of the time, but everything disappears as soon as he's with sehun and they immediately turn back to being the giggling high school weirdos they used to be. the dancer is very forgetful, so it's sehun who most of the time stops him from doing something overly stupid, but there's nothing wrong with that. at least he still has a friend who isn't a full-time parent and still makes time to live. 

sehun sighs, thinking back on high school. it was best years of his life. sophmore year was his absoute favorite because that was the time he befriended jongin. he had long been friends with kyungsoo and baekhyun and chanyeol, who were all a grade above him and made it their mission to protect him at all costs. but the day he found out his third-oldest hyung had gotten a boyfriend, his life changed forever. 

jongin was also a sophomore, but he was much more recognized around school than sehun was. he was the tall, tan, fucking hot football player that kyungsoo had fallen for. the mechanic was skeptical at first, seeing as how most stereotypical athletes treated their lover(s), but he soon saw that jongin was no regular guy. sure, he was fit and sometimes really stupid, but he was a shy, puppy-loving, absolute sweetheart if you got to know him, and to sehun's luck, he did. he found his fourth best friend in kim jongin.

nothing, nothing like fate or life or change, could ever affect that. 

but over a recent phone call, jongin was actually...even stranger. it was a weird strange (if that makes sense), an unnerving kind. jongin acted so strange to someone who was strange that his peculiarity seemed normal. that was the bad thing; jongin was also becoming normal. he was calm over the phone, he even scolded taeoh for being too loud in the background (which never happens), and he sounded oh-so-happy when he told sehun that he and kyungsoo were trying for a second child, but the strange thing about it caused the idea that kyungsoo was also being weird to surge through sehun. kyungsoo only wanted _one_ kid.

what was even happening? his friends were growing up around him, getting married, having kids, talking about sex with other adults like it was normal, and here sehun was; single, alone, and a 24-year-old virgin. the only thing was that he was scared, caught up in the past, angry and bitter, and alone by his own hand. he was scared of falling in love again, or maybe that he never fell out of it.

all his friends were growing up without him, even johnny who recently got engaged to his boyfriend, namely 'ten'. maybe chanyeol was right, sehun is acting like a child. 

sehun's body jerks when the door to the garage is opened, and he's a mere inch away from hitting his head on the underside of a car, but he relaxes when he realizes that it is probably johnny stopping by to finish up the mustang he's been fixing. 

"so you finally decided to show up again, you fucker," he calls out with a chuckle. "the storm didn't last that long, it's about time you actually came to work." 

but the response he gets when he pushes himself out from under the expensive BMW, is not what he was expecting. it's the same unhappy face he's seen a billion times and is almost tired of looking at. "i don't know if that was directed towards me or not, but i don't appreciate being called a 'fucker'," the pregnant man says, his eyes narrowing into little slits. 

sehun wonders if baekhyun will ever just let him do things on his own time. it's always him meddling in his business, apologizing for the same sentence he spat four years ago, and yet, sehun cannot get himself to appreciate it. he gets that baekhyun is trying to help, but it's almost as if he's trying to pull what sehun and kyungsoo did to get him his last name. the mechanic wishes he could tell him that not everyone needs someone to push things for them, but he sometimes wonders if that's even true. 

the younger hops up from the creeper, his eyes wandering to where a slightly taller and bashful male stands behind baekhyun, looking red-faced and all kinds of innocent. he reaches for the water bottle he has placed on the ground takes a swig, his body suggesting he needs it to stay calm. "what are you doing here?" he's honestly not sure if he directed it towards luhan, baekhyun, or the both of them together, but he knew baekhyun would answer anyway. 

and just like sehun predicts, the shortest in the room opens his mouth to speak. "we're here to see you, actually. right, luhan? we can do something." 

but park chanyeol the traitor has clarified that byun baekhyun won't be doing anything remotely strenuous until baby number five is out. 

"absolutely not," sehun says. "i can do it. i do it by myself most of the time, anyway." 

baekhyun laughs, one hand perched on his hip to somehow "assert dominance" (sehun actually thinks it makes him look like the korean, male version of a kardashian) while the other lays flat on top of his bump. he does that, as sehun has discovered, to be assured that they are still there, that a piece of park chanyeol resides in byun baekhyun and it's not just his heart. sehun discovered this upon the birth of the parks' second and third child, where a loopy baekhyun was confessing to chanyeol in the hospital room that he does it because it was reassurance that the giant wasn't going anywhere, that he feels whole. technically, donghyun is the only child of theirs to be born into wedlock besides the upcoming baby. 

"not today, you won't," the older asserts. "luhan is here!" he pauses to point at the boy as if it was some sort of celebration, when for sehun, it definitely wasn't. "and i, since baby is using my bladder as a bean bag, will being going home. you're welcome!" 

baekhyun goes to walk away, but sehun is quick to grasp his wrist in his hold, dragging the elder out the door. it's not to let him go quicker, it's to chide the elder in private. 

"baekhyun, what the hell?" he grits, stopping a few feet out the door. "i am perfectly fine on my own. i don't need anyone's help, so you both should go back to the inn. i don't need an amateur messing around with _my_ stuff."

baekhyun giggles, not even fazed by sehun's threatening aura. "luhan is just here to make things quicker," he says. "i'm sure he has enough decency not to mess around with your stuff without asking." 

"you really think he has 'decency'?" but the words never change baekhyun's unyielding eyes despite the reference to the cause of the tension in the first place. "take him back to the inn, baekhyun, _now_."

"why?" baekhyun offers inquiringly. "why should i? he's just here to help, he can't cause much harm. besides, chanyeol is putting up the christmas lights today and i need to watch the kiddos. can't you do me one favor, sehunnie...please?"

sehun races for words, baekhyun's hypnotizing pout almost coaxing him to say yes. "n-no, baekhyun," he splutters, making his best effort to stand his ground. "i can't have somebody who probably doesn't know shit about cars wandering around _my_ shop that belonged to _my_ father. i don't want him breaking thing. besides, just because your husband didn't, doesn't mean that luhan doesn't belong to where he came from." 

he watches baekhyun bite his lip, as if frustrated and trying to withold anger, but that's ridiculous since _sehun_ should be the frustrated one. "sehun, please. just this once. maybe you could show him around some stuff and he can help, like you taught me and i fixed all that stuff one time, and in a week, he'll be all out of your hair! i promise, sehunnie, and you know i never break my promises..." 

sehun shoves his hands in his pockets, watching the elder smile convincingly. "ugh--fine," sehun says, sighing at how the elder is still good at swaying sehun into his devious ways. "but you do realize that that one time i let you come by and help me "fix" stuff, i had to go back and do everything over for you, right?" 

"exactly!" baekhyun grins. "you can just do that with him!"

and he doesn't see the way sehun pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs heavily, wondering how the hell he can give into the little demon, because he walks away just like that, with a little wobble in his steps, back to his car. he leaves sehun to tend to the celebrity's car as the latter shuffles awkwardly.

"okay, um," he begins, his words soon fizzling out as he strains his throat not to say the words _i hate you, i'm really trying to, go away_. but he assumes luhan would not be too bothered by that, as he obviously doesn't like sehun too much either. "you can sit down over there, i guess..." 

luhan's eyes follow his gesture, landing on the seat. he nods, gulping and walking over, plopping right down in the chair. "so...is there anything you want me to do?" 

sehun sighs. "nope, just sit there. i'm trying my best to get you guys out of here as _quickly_ as i can," he says, his voice not lacking that acidic undertone. it makes luhan cringe, his palms clenching, nails imprinting in his skin. 

luhan stays quiet regardless of his raging desire to retort, deeming the taller male not worthy of his words when he acts so resentful around someone he doesn't even _know_. it's strange, really, getting a good whiff of what the person that stayed on your mind for too many nights to count is actually like, seeing the secrets of someone else be unveiled at your fingertips. 

since the day he met him, a brilliant but problematic run-in at the airport that resulted in him being underneath the gaze of dark eyes and a broad body. just the look they gave each other, how sehun's eyes were initially blown with anger at his own clothes being soaked in coffee, but because of something else too. sehun was heading somewhere with a purpose, and now that luhan knows baekhyun's side of the story, he knows sehun sent himself to retrieve the man and that was his purpose. 

who the hell was oh sehun? and why was he so two-faced? could he not just focus on one side fo himself?

from luhan's perspective, sehun was initially a sweet guy he met at the airport that captured his heart in the fraction of a second they were together, whose deep eyes were capable of blowing him away just like _that_. no, luhan was not a believer in 'love at first sight', but his encounter at the airport was enough to have his heart racing at the thought of being under such a man--broad and tall, weathered by time and exertion, a man accustomed to working constantly, and not just for his own benefit. 

then, coming here, he wasn't so much that sweet guy luhan thought he was. sure, everyone has their shortcomings and times of brokenness, but there's something about sehun's aggression, no matter the person it was directed to, and it disturbed luhan. a stranger he'd thought about at night when there was nothing left to think about, two empty yet buzzing with activity orbs that enamored luhan the moment they met his own. maybe it was the heat of the coffee that spilled all over luhan that day, or maybe it was the electricity shared by two people who were so work-oriented that even the slightest change in time and reality had them shaking in their socks. 

so who was sehun really? a passive-aggressive man who showed nothing but contempt to anything that wasn't the parks (as far as luhan has learned), a resentful man who spat acid in the faces of people who crossed him, who gave him a breath of reality? and then, luhan thought, maybe sehun has never had the opportunity to open up with reality, the exposure of truth, devoid of any lies whatsoever, and maybe oh sehun desperately needed that dose of reality. and maybe, when he got it, he would clutch it to his heart just like luhan had, and never let it go. 

but was that really sehun? maybe he was still, underneath all those layers of erosion and rubble, the same man he used to be, the one luhan had come to know in a split second that ideas were passed through two pairs of eyes that belonged to none other than each other's. maybe he was that devoted boy, though he adorned marks and scars of battle with fate, who wanted nothing other than to be united with his friends--for them to be a _family_. 

luhan had not come to know sehun yet, who could in mere days of quite literally avoiding each other like the plague? but one thing about luhan that sehun should see already, is that when he sees something he wants, he gets it. and in this case, maybe he wants sehun's fondness. maybe his benignity. or maybe he wanted to see the wear and tear beneath the dissimulation. 

and something luhan knows about sehun just from the way the man seems to grit his teeth when he exerts lots of energy, when he works hard, is that sehun is the _exact same way_. he also gets what he wants. 

unlucky for him, luhan has the advantage of persuasion at his fingertips. 

"i want something to do." 

sehun stops from his position under the car, making the entire thing more awkward than it was already because who even knew the expression sehun was wearing under there? who knew if he was even wearing one?

"do you even know anything about cars?" luhan can tell just from the way his chest rises and falls, that he is somewhat frustrated--deeming luhan a waster of his time. 

luhan contemplates. he knows practically everything about the toy cars that he used to get in cereal boxes, the ones his dad used to give him when he wasn't living in his office at work, but that's about it. oh, and he does know how to drive if that helps, and what the check engine light means. luhan might consider himself a certified expert. "umm...yes. some stuff." 

"some stuff?" sehun offers, his voice muffled because his jaw is clenched in concentration. "hon, it took me a whole damn two decades to be able to get where i am, 'some stuff' doesn't mean shit." 

luhan bites his lip--he should've know, he really should've. he also really should've known not to say what he said about the younger's job the other day at the inn, the ultimate spur of the conflict between them. he knows that sehun is defensive (which is a hypothesis that could easily be formulated by observations of when the younger wasn't really even allowed to get up from the couch without getting yelled at), it's in his nature, so he shouldn't have said what he said. 

but then again, sehun shouldn't have either. there's been too many fucking times over the duration of his career in soccer that he learned that people really only the see the guy who kicks a ball around on tv; not the one who's told to diet when he gains a single pound, not the one who practices hours upon hours a day, not the one who does it all just in the pursuit of a _dream_. luhan is also very defensive. 

"okay then, just give me something easy. i'm a quick learner, i promise," he replies, presuming that that choice of words sounded better than "there must be something simple to do". 

"can't," sehun grunts. "your problem is your transmission. it's a whole lot harder than you think. i've got everything else fixed up, but this damn transmission is taking the longest. i've almost got it completely removed. i just need you to hand me that ratchet sitting on the table." 

luhan looks over at said table, where an assortment of ratchets sit, completely disarranged. 

"can you do that for me?" 

"uh...yeah, just give me a moment." 

"okay, take your time." he swears he can hear the grin in the younger's voice when he sure does take his time. 

why the fuck would sehun ask for "the" ratchet of there's obviously no distinguished tool for the occasion? oh, that's right, because sehun is a _tease_ , and luhan is in thick of it all. 

"find it yet?" 

" _no_ ," luhan replies with a scowl. the mechanic's deep chuckle emanates from beneath the car, echoing in luhan's mind...it doesn't even matter if it was in the wake of his struggle, _the_ oh sehun just laughed wholeheartedly for the first time since luhan's been here. 

the taller clears his throat, as if clearing away the remnants of humor within him. "easy, it's the longest one." 

oh, how luhan wishes he could just face the younger with his middle finger straight in the disturbingly attractive man's face, and say _fuck you,_ because it apparently was just that easy. he swears that he will treat himself to another slice of baekhyun's shortcake if he doesn't end up slaughtering the mechanic by the end of the day. 

"of course it is," he mutters. 

"what was that?" came from beneath the car.

luhan grunts, "nothing." his shoes echo off the floor when he approaches the car, which woos the mechanic out from beneath the car. the soccer player diverts his eyes when he notices that the younger's typical white t-shirt has ridden up, exposing skin that luhan would've blatantly stared at had they not been under such circumstances. 

it's not anything he's not used to, in all honesty, because his occupation is a sport, where he's surrounded by tons of sinewy people who actually sort of intimidate him. he's on the smaller side with somewhat wide shoulders, but nothing too significant compared to sehun's. but looking at the rippled and pale skin of someone who continues to live on in his mind so frustratingly, makes him want to mind his own business. 

the taller reaches out with a gloved hand, his other reaching out to pull down his shirt. he nods when he sees that luhan's eyes stray far from him, and in the smaller's peripherals, he swears he can see the smallest hint of a _smile_. that's all he gets before the other returns to his position of sitting beneath the car. 

"it'll be out in no time."

 _and so will i_. 

"right..." 

soon, the garage is filled with repetitive clanking sounds, a few curses, and the quiet hums of the soccer player, until the transmission of finally removed and the mechanic emerges from beneath the car, the expansive key part in the car sitting on the jack. 

"holy shit..." sehun murmurs, gloved fingers inspecting every part. "are you sure this is actually a rental? i don't know why they would give you a car in this bad of a condition." 

luhan crosses his arms, the unsettling sensation of _guilt_ weighing in on him because his refusal to drive such an eye-catching car resulted in more work for sehun. though he doubts it's his fault, after all, it's his manager who was driving. "no, actually...it's mine. i just say it's a rental for protective purposes." 

"protective purposes, eh?" sehun offers. "must be a lot of people out there in the city who wanna stalk their favorite soccer player, huh?" 

"more than i'd like to talk about," the smaller male replies. 

the mechanic just nods, his attention going back to the severed transmission. "that's going to take a lot of fixing..." 

"what's so wrong with it?" 

"a lot of things," sehun says. "starting off, there's too much play in the throwout bearing which ultimately causes problems for the rest of the transmission, it's leaking fluid at a constant and uncontrollable rate, and there's some messed up electrical where the transmission is screwed in here and there. i'll have to see if i can get johnny to come by sometime this week to help out." 

"yeah...that sounds like a lot." 

sehun's heavy gaze shoots to him suddenly, nearly startling the smaller. "if you know so much about cars, then why didn't you notice that the transmission has been acting up?" 

luhan shrugs. "i don't know. maybe because i don't usually drive that car." 

"this?" sehun scoffs. "a perfectly fine vehicle that could probably pay my rent for an entire year? geez, how many cars do you have...?" 

"only one," luhan says calmly, despite not liking the way the younger appears to making him out to be spoiled. "i don't really drive that much. i take the bus." 

"you take the bus?" sehun laughs.

"yes, it's good to feel like you're not rich sometimes, so i do it as an escape on a daily basis," he says. "i may be the center of attention for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean i want to be." 

sehun stares at him for a moment, the look in his eyes akin to one filled with incredulousness. he watches luhan like he's crazy, like he's joking and will soon, out of absolutely nowhere, start laughing his ass off. "whatever you say..." 

luhan just sighs, placing his hands on his hips as the male adorned in a oil-stained white shirt with pair of blue jeans on pushes the transmission off the to side of the garage. he sits down beside, and once again, luhan doesn't know what the fuck he's supposed to do. why did baekhyun even drag him here?

right as luhan goes to open his mouth to say something, the strangely annoying sound of a ringtone pierces the air. luhan startles, looking over at sehun who still sits in front of the transmission, not even fazed. then, he looks up, dark eyes and all directed straight to luhan.

"can you check it for me? my hands are covered in oil." he holds up his glove-clad hands, as if he needed to prove to luhan just how much covered his hands in nasty brownish liquid. 

"o-okay," luhan says with a nod, mentally chiding himself, because why did he even stutter? there was nothing to stutter about! nothing! it was just his eyes. something so emotionless couldn't draw him in like that anymore. 

he hops up, grabbing the phone, just to see the contact 'baekhyun-hyung' slide across the screen, spreading a smile across his face. baekhyun is just the sweetest, quite possibly the most welcoming person he's ever met besides the male's husband. though he is loud and outgoing, he carries a motherly aura and is very thoughtful. 

luhan vividly remembers walking downstairs at almost midnight for a glass of water, half-awake and half-dead because practice that day hurt like shit. he can recall how slowly the moment passed, how he watched with wide-blown eyes as the giant man that was the inn-owner's husband knelt before him, his lips pressed against the prominent swell on the smaller's abdomen. he watched the way that baekhyun's fingers interlaced themselves in chanyeol's hair while the man spoke soft things to his...tummy.

now that luhan knows a large part of baekhyun's story, he can see why there would be tears rolling down the pregnant man's cheeks, an emotional smile on his face when he listened to every word the father of his children spoke while kneeling down in front of him. luhan was just blown away by the twisted vines of emotions he felt while watching the view, the way the tall man's hands caressed the skin of his husband's stomach and told him how brave and beautiful he was--how he kissed it as if he was kissing a newborn child, how he leaned in closely and whispered to his child that he will always be loved, no matter what.

 _that daddy will never leave him_. 

snapping out of his stupor, he quickly answers the phone, saying, "hey, baekhyun--" 

"i'm sorry, is this oh sehun?" a man's voice, definitely not chanyeol or baekhyun's, says over the line. 

"uh...y-yeahhh, who is this?" 

"i'm an ambulance driver. you might want to come to the hospital..." 

imagine their surprise at the revelation that park fucking chanyeol fell off the roof whilst putting on christmas lights and it triggered baekhyun's labor at only seven months pregnant. 

if he was honest, sehun would admit that every time he ends up sitting in this same seat, he always feels a little nervous. the first time more than the others, but it always happens, really. 

here, sitting in the hall of a sterile hospital with his foot tapping impatiently against the floor, he thinks about the day he might have his own kids. it's funny to think that way, actually, because he never thinks that way anywhere else. he doesn't even know if he's going to get married one day, so having kids is easily on the bottom of his list. he thinks about one day having a spouse who makes the brave decision to carry his children, his offspring. _their_ kids. sehun's not sure who that person is, or if they're just a simulation or not, but it always leaves an unnerving feeling within him.

four times. 

four times has he sat in the identical seat in this hospital, but only three times out of four were truly happy. he's been here for every birth in the parks' line of offspring. he has heard both the depressed sobbing and the happy cries of someone who just gave life to someone else; held a baby that was once considered a mistake, only to be a miracle in disguise along with his siblings. 

he'll never admit it, but he kind of likes sitting in this seat. it reminds him of all he's been there for. 

now, he's here because chanyeol couldn't not be a clutz for ten minutes and literally fell off of the roof, falling into the bushes that luckily spared him his life, but he still broke his damn shoulder. and consequently, he's here for baby number five too. it just so happened the chanyeol's near-death experience brought on the surprise emergence of the parks' newest family member who still has yet to make an appearance. 

the other additions to the park family lay asleep on a leather couch that sits across from them in the waiting room. yejun holds donghyun to his chest the way baekhyun used to do when the former got upset when he was a baby. the twins are draped across his legs, stirring every once in a while. they were so excited (but sort of scared since their father literally fell off the roof) to find out that their youngest brother would be arriving soon, so happy that they passed out from exhaustion not even an hour into sitting in the waiting room. 

chanyeol only got out of surgery half an hour ago and he was still half delirious when they brought him in to watch the delivery of their fifth baby. as it turns out, baekhyun loudly refused to let them deliver his baby without his husband present, as high as he may be, so the baby really should've come much earlier, but the c-section was able to be held off until chanyeol got out of surgery. 

luhan sits beside him, chewing nervously on his lip. who knew that someone whose whole life revolves around the country's biggest city like it was the sun of all metropolitan areas, could be there for a small town inn-owner and his husband when he didn't even know them? 

that's something that always manages to always having sehun racing for answers, question after question running through his mind. who really was luhan? an emotional, city-born soccer player who tries to live in the least aristocratic way he can? or was he so much more? 

it's funny to think you can know someone just by watching them on tv, finding out all the not-overly-obsessive information about them that you can. sehun (embarrassingly) was at that point once, and he was convinced he was in love with him too. how fucking hilarious is that? 

luhan suddenly sighs heavily beside him, audibly and visibly nervous. 

"why are you so nervous?" 

"i don't like hospitals," luhan says, his fingers lacing together in lap. "they give me an eerie feeling." 

"seriously?" the mechanic replies. 

luhan hums, nodding his head, and one glance at sehun's expression has him saying, "we all have our childhood traumas." 

the taller male just shrugs it off, leaning back in his seat as his feet continue to rest flat on the floor. he likes to think about how funny it is that these seats were made so little for average-sized people (which is surprisingly short in south korea) and he's definitely not average-sized. he sometimes likes to wonder how someone really small would look like trying to sit in the seat, their feet never even touching the floor. 

"you look strangely calm," luhan points out. 

sehun wants to laugh. "yeah, maybe because i know this seat all too well." 

the soccer player raises his eyebrows. "you got something you want to tell me--" 

"not for me," sehun says before the other can get the wrong idea. "i'm the park children's godfather, luhan--" and _holy shit_ , he actually says luhan's name... "--and have been since their eldest was brought into this world. i kind of have to be here." 

luhan wants him to elaborate, to get this entire mess of the past explained to him better so he could understand. since baekhyun was being awful egnimatic as he spoke to luhan and the chinese male tried his hardest to figure out everything said, he wants sehun's point of view. after all, he seemed to have been there for it all. 

luhan smiles. "i'm sure you like it. life is a miracle, and though hospitals aren't my favorite place, this is easily the most secure place in here. in other parts, some may be succumbing the end of life, while existence is blooming all around us here. we're surrounded by a person's first breaths rather than their lasts," he says, and sehun eyes him from the side, watching how his gaze scrapes over the pictures of babies hanging on the wall of the corridor. 

sehun hums. "i've never thought about it that way." 

"children are special," the soccer player comments. "chanyeol and baekhyun are very lucky. i'm glad they're happy." 

sehun tilts his head in thought, contemplating the words. chanyeol and baekhyun are very lucky, and he's glad that the two now recognize their fortune. when they first found out that they were pregnant with the twins, they were still mending things. they were panicked, really, absolutely terrified, but overjoyed that they would finally be _together_ again, to have that family they always wanted. 

"me too," he whispers, catching the eyes of luhan who smiles. he never tears his gaze away, swearing he can see luhan's beauti-- big eyes glittering in the light of the hospital corridor. there're no tears which usually makes a person's eyes sparkle, luhan's just does it...naturally. like, when he just won a game and he's the happiest little thing, or even when sehun agreed with him. they shimmer.

"are you okay?" 

"hm?" sehun chokes out, averting his gaze to his feet on the floor. 

"you were staring," luhan says. 

sehun just nods. "i'm fine." 

luhan is internally overjoyed when the nurse lets them in, even though luhan nor sehun have direct relation to the couple other than a close friend and guest at the inn. 

though hospitals hold a bad place in luhan's heart, there's nothing toxic about the hospital room when he enters. it's a family, all gathered around a man sitting with a small bundle in his arms. since the kids woke up a half hour ago when the couple let them in, they're all there. 

"cute, isn't it?" sehun asks from beside him. the parks don't seem to notice that they're there. 

luhan nods, saying, "yeah, it is." 

that's when baekhyun finally looks up from the bundle in his arms, a smile spreading across his face. he motions towards them with a finger over his pretty lips to be quiet, since the baby is visibly sleeping. then, he gestures them in further, chanyeol also looking up from his child with a smile on his face. 

sehun gulps. that's just how dad-like his best friend has become, as it shows that despite their altercation a few days ago, things are still good. they're still best friends. strange they may be, but best friends nonetheless. 

"hi," baekhyun whispers, his eyes going from luhan to sehun, and finally to where their arms touch each other. 

noticing, the two separate, leaving at least a foot between them. baekhyun's smile falters ever-so-slightly, but brightens when the swaddled baby in his arms wakes with a cry. 

"shh," he coos, shifting to lightly rock the baby in his arms. "sehunnie and hannie are here to see you..." the latter bites his lip at the nickname. 

"he sure came as a surprise," chanyeol comments, reaching out with his good arm to pet baekhyun on the shoulder, the smaller leaning into his touch. "something just had to happen with our last."

"i don't know, yeol," baekhyun says. "we're pretty prone to accidents." 

"but they're never really accidents, are they?" the taller asks. "they're just miracles in disguise; a part of me and you together. now we have five of those." 

luhan watches the couple, feeling sehun beside him as the taller male sends him the smallest glances every once in a while. that night, he gets a glance what he hopes his life can be like. the thought that not all people have the chance to be happy with someone like that, or they never took the chance when they had it, strikes a difficult chord in luhan. he doesn't think anyone should be alone; not baekhyun, not chanyeol, not the nameless baby who shares their dna, not joonseok, and no, not even the hateful, cold, distant oh sehun deserves to be alone. it's crazy what just a little bit of company--of _love_ \--can do to someone. 

the mechanic still admires the sight, ever-so-slightly envious of chanyeol and baekhyun's lives. they're in love, and hell, they never even fell out of it. but just like all events in sehun's life, love for him was simply catastrophic, because it's not everyday that someone actually falls in love with the soccer player they watch on tv, with the guy who looked so incredibly good under him. 

just those sparkling eyes. they were enough. 

simply incandescent. that's what they looked like back then, that's what they look like now. 

everyone's being weird, sehun is too, but maybe, _just maybe_ , a little strangeness is all he needs to turn his world upside down. 


	7. Heart Equals Engine?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all, i am no medical professional, i'm just a girl with no life and not a lot of time to research. so i technically changed some science up here (as if mpreg doesn't already do that) and things don't take as long as usual. sorry for this, i realized halfway in that in the beginning i could've just made baek due soon. but anyway, on with this crap

a baby born at seven months is extremely odd. sometimes, _most_ of the time, actually, it can result in major and chronic complications to both the child and carrier. babies spend nine months in their carrier's body to grow completely and healthily, to make sure that their bodies are big and healthy enough. and if they're not, babies spend a good amount of time in the NICU for further check-ups and intensive healthcare, much like the youngest of the park family spent right after birth. 

chanhyun is no big baby, even as the giant park chanyeol's newborn son, and his early birth is the biggest reason his size is concerning. he spent a little time in the NICU right after the little boy came out with a red face and blaring wails, that's exactly why it took a while before the parks were properly able to see their baby, and the some time after baekhyun and chanyeol (with his not-broken arm) held him. it was a few hours later that the medical staff returned and told the couple everything they needed to know about a premature baby and that chanhyun was completely fine for a baby of his condition, just a little small and needed medical superivision for the time being. after that, everyone including the godfather and his despised acquaintance was allowed to see the baby through the incubator.

there were many coos of _oh my god, he's so small..._ and _holy shit, he's almost as small as my hand!_ , and then _chanyeol, don't fucking curse around our children! you already cursed us with your clumsiness, but now this?,_ during all of which sehun thought the exhausted carrier was being extremely hypocritical, but wouldn't say anything in fear of waking up without vital parts such as his precious manhood. 

yes, of all things, sehun takes pride in his _package_. he takes pride in his big buddy, his sehun jr., pretty much just his dick. just the sheer size of it is impressive, the thickness and the length. baekhyun, who has seen the said appendage all too many times to count just from waltzing in on sehun in his home, or just from when all of them used to shower after gym and have worthwhile commentary about whose was better (it truly is still a mystery, though, despite the fact that kyungsoo immediately voted for jongin from personal experience, but chanyeol was dejected and betrayed when baekhyun voted for sehun), can vouch for him when he says that. sehun has a big nose and he's not afraid to admit it. 

chanhyun looks absolutely adorable despite his skin being red and his smallness. sehun has seen every single one of the park family offspring almost right after birth, but not this one. this one can only be held by his papa, to hear his heartbeat which he was deprived of too early in his conception, but baekhyun is taking a well-deserved nap right now as he rests against chanyeol's shoulder, bangs still damp with sweat from his labor that started over 24 hours ago. 

the park children lay as they did in the waiting room, in an almost (keyword being almost) cute cuddle pile. the children are all very close to each other since they were raised in such a loving home. the parks decided after soomin and soojin were born that they would be different than their own parents; whatever would happen with their babies, they would fully support them until the day they die. 

chanyeol's parents used loathe his dreams, wanted him to have a better, more stable future, but at least they're reunited again and the grandparents see the group of hooligans plus a very forgiving baekhyun at least once a week. mrs. park invites baekhyun over for tea a few times a month even four years later, calling it an "atonement for my sins", and the carrier fully accepted it with his big, beautiful heart. mr. park also apologized, taking in his grandchildren with ease and delight beneath his calm facade, and especially loves granddaughters with all of his heart.

baekhyun's parents who rejected him from his getting pregnant so early in his lifetime with a boyfriend who they deemed a bad lover, someone who could not support baekhyun in his worst moments. their relationship is still strained and the byuns still consider chanyeol a bad guy, but they have seen their grandchildren before as baekhyun said it was required that they at least meet the boy they threw him out over almost 6 years ago. they looked regretful, as chanyeol informed sehun who also doesn't have the best past with them, but they were unwilling to back down and let their son tie the knot with the "huge fucking mistake of a man". however, baekhyun assured chanyeol that that changed nothing; they were back together again and nothing was going to change that, now they've been married for a few years.

the parks' kids were lucky, having so many of each other to go to when they needed it. sehun had a brother, too, who was only a few years older than him, but even then sehun has always been a little bit of a loner and his older brother was always the wild type, exactly the reason why he grew up and moved away as soon as he could, leaving a teenage sehun to inherit his father's business all on his own with no one but his close friends to turn to. 

"penny for your thoughts?" a soft voice from beside him says, making the mechanic snap out of his stupor. he averts his eyes from the small newborn baby being laying peacefully in the incubator, luckily not needing a breathing machine. 

sehun was not bothered at first, but then he realized he was beginning to develop a soft spot for the soccer player when he most definitely shouldn't be. but then again, sehun wasn't stupid enough to fall for someone he didn't know, right? all he knew about luhan was that the soccer player is very emotional, he really likes to help, he cares about people he doesn't know, he doesn't know shit about cars besides what the check engine light does, he never gives up, he has incredibly pretty eyes and resembles a deer-- but, and he's going too far... trust him, he doesn't know luhan. he _totally_ doesn't remember his birthday from when he used to be a huge fan, not his height, not his birthplace, or his blood type, he definitely doesn't recall anything from that time when he was whipped for the guy whose hair bounced up and down as he ran on tv. 

sehun wanted to put up a fight and say _no, bitch, it takes way more than a penny to be worthy of my thoughts_ , but then figured that it wouldn't be appropriate.

he only sighs and says, as odd as it sounds, "no, thanks." 

luhan was even taken aback.

was that even that right response for that kind of question? or what even was the correct response for that kind of question? was there even one? sehun doesn't even fucking know, he didn't pay attention in class in high school, and who even has time to do college when you run your own fucking business? 

"um...i-i was literally just asking about what you were thinking..." luhan mutters quietly, sinking into his seat. 

sehun still sits as tense as ever, his broad shoulders acting as football gear he can't necessarily dodge everything with but can at least hit back at it with. trust oh "tall noodle" sehun to be as awkward as ever, not even knowing what to say when someone is curious about what he's thinking about. damn, he must've been staring at that baby for way too long for someone to ask that. 

"i-i know," he manages to stutter out. "i just...don't want to share them."

"why?" 

_why? why?! this guy has the audacity to ask why?_

"because...i don't want to..." sehun mutters carefully and quietly, the room filled with all too much fatigue for it to be appropriate that he says it loudly. 

"damn, you're elusive," luhan mutters under his breath, but with the silence of the room, sehun is still capable of hearing it.

sehun nods. "and i'd prefer to stay that way." 

luhan turns to him, alarmed, his resemblance to a deer caught in headlights uncanny. with his doe eyes blown wide and surprised, he turns to look at the mechanic who dons an almost amused expression. "you heard that?"

"it's hard not to when everything else in the room is silent besides the heart rate monitor," sehun says. "damn, that thing is actually really annoying." 

"i kinda like it," the soccer player replies.

sehun looks at him, amazed. "you continue to confuse me every time i meet you. i mean, it's just a heart rate monitor, what's to like about it, luhan?"

luhan smiles at that dramatic look sehun wear flawlessly. despite how uninterested he appears to be, sehun is still super obvious every time he has the same face. luhan thinks he's awful dramatic for a so-called emotionless guy. "it's not that weird," he says. "i just like to listen to it. there's always a steady beat."

"shit, now you're sounding like chanyeol," sehun whispers amusedly. 

"no, seriously," the elder replies. "it's always steady, until it's not. i like the fact that that heartbeat represents life and not death. i like baekhyun's specifically 'cause he's not here losing his life, just giving life to someone else."

"ah, i can see that," he mechanic answers, his fingers tapping to the rhythm of baekhyun's heartbeat on his thigh. "i still don't see why there's so much symbolism behind it for you, though." 

"you're not the kind of person that would," luhan answers. sehun almost would have objected, have said that _yes, he would_ , but he recognizes the gentle tone in luhan's voice and sees that behind it lies no contempt or bitterness. it was a simple true statement. "you--from what i know about you, at least--...you only see the obvious. things lack symbolism for you. like how books are just words on paper for you, they're lifesavers for others. everyone is different, sehun, and for me...a heartbeat represents the presence of life, the beauty in hope.

"when my grandfather was in the hospital when i was only a child, i found hope in the idea that the incessant beeping of the heart rate monitor meant that my grandfather was still alive regardless of how many times we were told he may not make it through the night. so everyday, in honor of my grandfather and my hopeful beliefs, i read to him, i talked to him, told him about what i did at school, many other things, all with the hope that that meant something. i did it all because i needed something to believe in. i needed a concrete idea to hold my trust in, that was the only way.

"in the end, my grandpa survived. he really did and he told me that everything i did meant so much to him. you see, i simply looked for something to have trust in and held it for so long, such a long time until it actually happened. if you...if you just find hope and joy in the little things, you'll see that your life is so much better. that's what i did." 

luhan speaks with so much intensity that it sends a shiver down sehun's back. everyone around him was trying to teach him a lesson, like it was a main goal of theirs to show him something he hadn't seen yet. don't they think it's about time he learnt something on his own?

"what i'm trying to say is...sometimes you need something to believe in and the best place to find it is in something you've never thought about before. i took my grandpa for granted up until that moment, and though he survived that, he died only a few years later. we can never really tell the future, but finding hope in something small can humble us so that we don't spend so much time thinking 'maybe this will be worthless one year from now', and instead having the mindset that right now is what's most important, you know?" luhan gazes as the mechanic expectantly, having just poured his heart out to a guy a he definitely doesn't know but is...still in love with. it's childish, 'love at first sight' is, but looking into sehun's eyes as the younger struggles to put the pieces of life together in their puzzle, he can feel that it's still there. it's a fire still burning inside him. 

he goes to say something else when sehun's jaw unclenches, and he says, "i thought you were going to say something like 'people's heart can't be bought. you don't know that, do you?',"--and yes, he says it just like jan-di did--"or shit like that."

luhan stares at him for a long moment, gaping. "d-did you seriously just quote 'boys over flowers', right now? right when i'm trying to have a serious conversation with you? that has literally nothing to do with what i was saying..." he trails off with a disappointed shake of his head, clenching his fists. "you are so...childish."

"i am not," sehun offendedly replies. "you should meet my friend jongin, he's worse than me." 

"how am i suprised? the fact that you're friends says everything to me." sehun watches him running his hands through his hair, eyes speculative, as if he's thinking of something very serious that he needs to ask about. even though sehun just comprehended the entire discussion, he just though he'd add a little humor, and it's now obvious that comedy is not his forte. he never expected luhan to look so serious. 

"okay," he begins. "think about it like this: you love cars, right? you know all the convoluted shit about them?" sehun just nods. "well, the engine is practically the heart of the car, right? without it, nothing runs correct?"

"that's more like the brain of the car, though--"

"shut up," luhan cuts him off. "but anyway, when you find out that there's an internal problem, you don't think about how bad it could be, right? you try to think about what you don't have to replace instead of what you do, don't you?" 

sehun hums before actually shaking his fucking head, saying, "nope, i don't really do that--"

"then maybe you should!" luhan tells him in a whisper-shout, finding this man way too hard to work with and impossible to be diplomatic with. he turns to see if anyone in the dim hospital room was awoken by his stressed outburst before he turns back to the ever-blank-faced sehun. "instead of thinking about how bad the damage is, maybe you should hope there's something that's not defective. trust me, it'll do wonders on your positivity. 

"if you just had some hope that there's something you could salvage, your life will be so much better. and even though you think it may not mean anything, say, a month from now, you should still do it if it means something to you. if you fix that engine with positivity, you look forward to hearing the sound it makes, right? revving the engine in the end is everything, no?" 

sehun stares at him dumbly, still looking skeptical just to elicit that frustrated look from the male in front of him. "so...you're saying that, in this case, the heart's the engine?"

"yes!"

"and if you hope that you can hear the sound when it accelerates, everything will be more positive, yeah?"

"exactly!"

"so, when you do hear it, you're, like, ten times happier that it started if it actually does?"

"yes! precisely! you see, you're not that stupid after all!" luhan exclaims quietly, and this point, sehun is wondering how this hell this happy man has not woken anyone else in the room up, but he's too enlivened by the look in those doe eyes as he gets the point that's been all too obvious for him since the beginning, but _damn_ , seeing the initial passion in those eyes as luhan told him about what he did when he was a little kid, to the frustration when sehun was making it hard for him, all the way to the happiness when sehun finally understood what he saying, was all just the best sight, though the mechanic doesn't have the balls to admit it.

sehun grins. "that doesn't make sense, but okay. i get it now."

"not everything makes sense," luhan says. "you've just got to wait until the end to find out." 

"everything's just so much better in the end?" he asks. "what if it's not? what if things do not end up working out, huh? then what do you do?" sehun watches him with prying eyes. grown-up people just have so much to say, so much to advise, while sehun... well, he's just sehun. the baby of their friend group, practically the only single one, and the only virgin. they say older people are more wise because they've seen the world's ways much longer than he has, and he guesses that's true. 

"not everyone is going to have a happy ending, but they can still look for the bright side, no? the silver lining? things may not always work out, but trust me, sehun, there's a reason behind everything. just be positive, that's the best advice i can give you," luhan says with a smile. 

three days later, everyone is back at the inn. luhan is slowly and dreadfully checking off the days on his calender until the deadline, left with only a little over half a week left in the little town until they head for their final destination before luhan boards a plane and travels across the globe. it's something he's not ready for, after seeing how inviting this town has been to him (excluding sehun) and scrutinizing their very way of life. it was never in their agenda to stay parked in the town for much longer than a day, but with their car being an absolute abomination, he assumes it was only the inevitable. maybe luhan likes the inevitable. 

chanyeol and baekhyun are admiring their early-born baby, taking the precautions of having a premature child. there was nothing more heartbreaking for the couple than finding out that baekhyun would likely be put through an emergency c-section, but lucky for them, chanhyun was not so eager to leave the comforting warmth of baekhyun's stomach. chanyeol was more than thankful to be able to watch his (probably not) last son be born (from a distance, of course) after it was all his fault since he fell off the roof. however, baekhyun was also told by the doctor that stress triggered the labor so early in the pregnancy, along with the "looseness" (which makes no sense) that baekhyun preferred to ignore, which the couple assumes is from the situation with the inn, their hyperactive kiddos, chanyeol's idiocy, and sehun and luhan's feud. 

chanhyun is a sleepy little guy. the couple decided that his name would a combination of their own since he was their last (pft, like that was true), but he turned out not being anything like them. he's calm and quite the little observer. he loves to eat and only cries when he wants to or dirtied his diaper, never really whining much besides that. he needs to go to the doctor at least once every week, but laying on baekhyun's chest and hearing his carrier's heartbeat was just enough of a healer for the small baby. he stays like that most of the time, his head resting against the left side of baekhyun's chest, right where his heart is, and sleeping there, immediately getting awoken if he is lightly peeled away by his taller father. 

the four older kids of the parks have been especially considerate of their little brother's comfort by not being so loud. they're excited, of course, to have a new addition to play with one day, but chanhyun is not only far too young for that yet, but small and sensitive. they commonly crowd around baekhyun, smiling down at their youngest brother who nearly matches the size of their taller father's hand. they try not to mess around with their papa too much, either, after having been told off because baekhyun's cesarean scar is still fresh and is painful at even the slightest movements. 

but sehun, however, immediately returned to the garage after putting off work for three days. johnny had other projects, daniel had other stuff to work on, and many of his other employees who came around the clock had their own personal lives and projects to deal with. while sehun's was luhan's car, his fucked-up yet nice ass car that sehun is determined to finish and get things over with. 

the talk at the hospital with luhan was too much, he has gone soft and let luhan's words affect him as they sat in the hospital room with them for three fucking days. luhan was in and out, going to soccer practice and coming back, then going home to sleep.

sehun stayed all three days and helped his friends, watching the parks' hooligans for hours upon hours a day as an obligated godfather, all the while baekhyun was becoming accustomed to having another newborn baby (but what's even new about that?) and chanyeol was getting checked up on. his shoulder was pretty damaged after some tendons had been severed and the bone in his arm had literally been split in half. his surgery was pretty simple, done just for the tendons that needed to be repaired and would be fully in a few months, and his arm was put in a cast to repair the severe break. 

in all, sehun's week has been nothing short of chaotic. getting set back at work will only affect his personal life since his sworn enemy still resides at the park inn, sleeping peacefully at night whilst sehun works. 

sehun's nights (both in his bed at his own cold apartment and in the sterile-smelling hospital) are spent trying to rid himself of the thought that continues to wrack his mind despite his incessant and abundant attempts to do so. 

there's always that someone that hogs our brain, someone we can't forget. for chanyeol, it was always baekhyun. baekhyun's memory was always there on nights he spent alone in that stupid fucking dorm of his, even on the nights he drank all the liquor he could hold to just forget. forgetting obviously didn't seem to work, as before they all knew it, chanyeol was back in town, and chanyeol and baekhyun were working things out several uncertain months later.

it's always been the same way for baekhyun, too. chanyeol lived on in his mind and would never leave. even when the air conditioning system in his bedroom broke and he dealt with it, without the warmth to pull him closer and help him, he always pretended it was there. no matter the pain and suffering baekhyun experienced in those two terrible years, chanyeol never really left baekhyun in the carrier's mind. 

kyungsoo and jongin have always been so whipped for each other. their fights never really went anywhere despite how stubborn kyungsoo was and how submissive jongin was for him, and they always ended up fucking it out. it surprisingly worked, as they were not only perfect for each other but were never able to leave each other for more than a few days. things between them have always been alright. kyungsoo loved and thought of jongin regardless of the crazy things he used to do, regardless of the people who he used to hang out with and be a part of. and jongin always loved and thought of kyungsoo when the elder pushed him away when he was angry, when he was pissed and blamed everything on the younger. they would never stray far from each other.

sehun's never really been able to focus on one. for so many years of his life, his dad was his light, his everything. he learnt everything he knows from the man, got every single ounce of his capability from a man who now lies six feet under the ground, and suddenly sehun's life was darkness.

it was only a few weeks after chanyeol left that his father died, so sehun found a distraction. his everything was then pleasing baekhyun, pulling his best friend back from the shadows and getting chanyeol back. but things weren't that easy because chanyeol had already moved on with his life, he was already famous after a few months. sehun's light and hope fizzled away like his spirit did. 

then...then there was luhan. the man he met in the airport and bought a coffee for was not just any regular person, but a soccer player on the rise. sehun was flicking through channels one day and came across the sports channel, but suddenly it was like everything changed. there was that guy, smiling proudly after having just scored the first goal in the game. 

that's what sehun lays awake doing, forgetting. being some weird fan-boy over luhan was a distant memory, at least it used to be, and here he was now, talking to the man himself. he had a heart-to-heart conversation with luhan, letting something be explained in his own vehicle-language, and he thinks that the him from four years ago would have fainted by now. 

luhan was blooming flower that was now withered away into ash, specks of it flying away in the wind. 

sehun was a kid who couldn't figure out who he was and what he wanted, acting as if he was a doll waiting for a human to make decisions for him, to decide where he sits and what he does. 

though he stays awake to forget and tries really fucking hard to, to say _stop it, this is stupid, oh sehun_ , he will never be able to get rid of the ruined shirt adorned with mustangs and a large coffee stain that still sits at the bottom of his drawer. _that_ , that is what he hates the most out of it all. the only thought he has is that he wants it, all of his problems, gone.

so right now, as he sits in his garage and orders the parts he needs to finish fixing luhan's car, only one thing is on his mind: getting luhan out of here. 


	8. Drunk on You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get ready ;)

'what was the person who discovered milk doing to the cow?'

sehun is snapped out of his thoughts at a punch on his shoulder, his usual uninterested daze faltering as he turns to meet jongin, who stares at him expectantly. "what the fuck was that for?" he hisses, rubbing over his soon-to-be-bruised arm. jongin's a strong guy, being both a football player and a dancer in his years of high school and even now. i know what you're thinking: how did he manage to do both? well, jongin just happens to be very talented and hardworking, so he was capable of managing them both. 

"when were you going to tell me that _he_ is here?" asks the elder, looking at sehun with that disgustingly cute pout that makes him look more sad than upset. 

sehun narrows his eyes. "what are you talking about?"

jongin gives him that 'you-know-what-i'm-talking-about' look. "that guy. the one that you...you know." 

sehun finds amusement in the way jongin is timidly dancing around the subject, as if trying not to trigger an outburst. "i still don't know what you're talking about."

the tan male gapes at him, exasperated. "that soccer player guy. luhan. dude, come on."

"oh..." sehun plays along dumbly. "right, yeah, i didn't think it was that important." he just shrugs. 

"not important?!" jongin throws an arm over his shoulder, looking back to see if anyone in the next room is watching. "bro, you _loved_ him. you had legit feelings for this guy. why aren't you telling me these things?" 

in all honesty, sehun hoped this would be one of those secrets between he and jongin that the elder would forget. that's why jongin is great for secrecy--he listens, he forgets, he never brings it up, and all is well. but there's some secrets that jongin, himself, internally reviews to see if it's truly important, and based off of his sudden onslaught of questions for sehun, it's one of the latter. 

"because i don't love him anymore, remember?" he asks, hoping the tan male would just let it go and walk away to go be all lovey-dovey with soo. 

" _right_..."

the younger glances at him, wide-eyed and serious. "i'm not joking, man. it was stupid from the beginning. i'm not in love with anyone. my job is my top priority, you know that. why can't we just let this go?"

"love is not stupid, sehun," jongin lectures. "and i understand that you love your job and all, but maybe we miss you. me and soo really miss you. but maybe, if you'll allow it, a little love would soften that overly-hard exterior of yours, and you can actually have fun and live your life again." the elder speaks like it's the best thing he's ever come up with, even going as far as attempting "jazz-hands" with his free hand. 

sehun stares blankly. "not a chance." 

"come on, man," jongin whines. "have some fun. go out, drink some, and maybe, lose your--"

"jongin, i swear to god," sehun threatens. 

"just think about it, okay?" he says. "your shoulders are too tense. you look like a piece of china from my mom's cabinet right now,"--sehun does not get the analogy--"and you need to blow off some steam. tomorrow night, you, me, the guys, all at the bar. all the drinks we want. and maybe you can manage to lose your v-card while at it, you know? they say a bar is the best place to find true love," jongin finishes, downing a cup of eggnog with a strangely innocent giggle. 

"literally no one has ever said that--" 

but jongin is already walking away, stumbling over his feet (despite the eggnog being alcohol-free) to taeoh, who sits on the rug with yejun, the two stacking some blocks. yejun's tower is much more intricate than taeoh's (something chanyeol likes to point out that kyungsoo throws a wet towel at him for), but it's truly the dedication that counts and neither appear to be stopping. 

soon, kyungsoo is calling everyone to the dining room for dinner and they all settle down, luhan and joonseok included. baekhyun decided it would be a good idea that they have a welcoming-back party for the kims even though it was a simple vacation to jeju and it rained the whole time, according to the ever-negative kyungsoo. baekhyun tried making something special for them, but kyungsoo kicked him out of the kitchen as soon as they arrived. 

they all sit down, the kids ignoring all the adults as they make little jokes on their own; taeoh and yejun communicating quietly, the twins talking about whose barbie is prettier, and donghyun just wolfs down his food like a pro. but little baby chanhyun rests in chanyeol's arms (more like _arm_ ) sleeping peacefully because he finished his milk a little while ago in the living room. 

"he's adorable," kyungsoo comments, admiring the small child from across the table. 

"thank you," baekhyun replies. "you know, chanyeol, i'm actually pretty happy you fell off the roof and broke your arm, otherwise he wouldn't be as small as he is," he adds, cooing at the slumbering baby from beside him, reaching a hand up to caress his youngest's curled fist. 

chanyeol just laughs. "me too. i would definitely sacrifice my own vital limb for a cute baby again." 

it sparks quiet laughter from everyone at the table except the distracted kids. 

"so, sehun," kyungsoo begins. "how are you?" 

the said male chuckles. "you guys are the ones who returned home from vacation, not me. i think we should be asking you that." 

the elder rolls his eyes. "no, seriously. don't tell me you've been stuck at the garage this whole time. you know how i feel about you staying there for so long," he says, giving the younger a warning glance. kyungsoo raises his glass of red wine to his lips, sipping his drink but never once sending a curious eye to sehun. 

"i know, i know. i promise, i haven't been spending too much time there. trust me, i won't get hurt again." 

baekhyun steps in when kyungsoo appears unsatisfied, saying, "sehun has spent a lot of time with luhan, here." all adult eyes go to luhan, the bashful male cowering under five prying gazes, including joonseok's. 

"oh, really?" kyungsoo inquires. 

it's really these two who cause a lot of trouble. sure, sehun, chanyeol, and jongin might be the chaotic giants out of their group, but when baekhyun and kyungsoo band together, they can cause a shit-load of trouble. remember when sehun said that baekhyun reminds him of a korean, male version of a kardashian? well, baekhyun just happens to be the kris out of all the women he could be, and kyungsoo is kim. maybe not so 'rich-y', but definitely bitchy. 

"uh...n-not that much," luhan says. "he...sort of helped my manager and i. we've just seen each other around, you know? here at the inn when baekhyun made him stay, at the garage when baekhyun made me go, at the hospital..."

"at the hospital, huh?" asks the wide-eyed male. 

"when chanhyun was born," sehun replies. "don't be jealous, soo. it's not my fault that baekhyun and chanyeol chose me as their children's godfather instead of you." he mentally pats himself on the back for the perfect response that would most definitely pull kyungsoo's attention away from his "spending time with luhan", and rather focusing on his pent-up rage on the long-lived conflicting topic. 

kyungsoo gapes. "why, you little sh--" 

"okay!" chanyeol speaks up. "why don't you guys tell us about your trip, yeah?"

sehun zones out as every other adult at the table besides joonseok (the man being distracted with his phone) engages in conversation. he distractedly sips at his wine, finding his plate of half-finished food to be more entertaining than an entire conversation about the fake reason taeoh spent so much time at the resort daycare while jongin and kyungsoo remained inside the hotel room. he's too tired of hearing those lies, and kyungsoo's pessimistic comments about how shitty the weather there was. well, it was their fault for going on vacation to jeju in the dead of winter, where it doesn't snow much but on the mountaintops and rains everywhere else.

unconciously, sehun's gaze wanders from his plate of food to the quiet male sitting at the other end of the table, enjoying his pasta. his eyes catch the way that the creases of his eyes crinkle ever so softly when he smiles at something witty (read: stupid) baekhyun has to say, how his teeth are perfect and white and nothing looks out of place. this is an entire side of luhan that he never got to see. 

the luhan he fan-boyed over four years ago took things pretty seriously, or at least that's how he looked on tv. he took the game very intensely, always kept his eye on the ball. his passion, however, was his key to success. after each goal he or a teammate made, he would do a handshake or chest-bump with them like a stereotypical athlete does, but his does not lack emotion and it appears sincere. sure, based off of the way he played and how effortless he made the sport look, he took the game seriously, but at the end of the day, it wasn't the desire to win that fueled him, and sehun could just see it in his eyes when the other smiled at a fan and it was caught on camera. it was the pure satisfaction in playing something he loved. 

sehun almost looks at that smile and breaks out into one himself, but stops before he can.

no, no, no. this is not happening. sehun _hates_ luhan, despises him from the very seeds of his rotten core. sehun does not have a soft-spot for this guy--he simply won't fall for him again. 

he spends the rest of dinner eating his food despite not being hungry anymore, doing anything to keep his eyes away from luhan.

the music rings in his ears as sehun sits in the club, every single friend he has except the kardashians of the group gathered around him, all who-knows-how-many of them chugging down alcohol. 

he doesn't regret coming tonight, honestly, because drinking with the boys in a room full of people who aren't completely dressed is better than sitting on the couch in your underwear while drinking too many cans of beer to be allowed for one person such as himself. it took a lot of convincing to get him here (actually, not that much, just jongin offering to pay for his drinks) and now that he is, the feeling of being alive again is there. the feeling of having alcohol running through his veins feels better now than it ever has. 

he's no teenage boy attempting to swallow alcohol for the first time, he's a full-grown adult who can make decisions on his own and order his own drinks. and he's also no longer that mechanic that works all the time at this moment, because right now he's lost in the sound of liquor watering down the problems in his life, lost in the euphoria that is carefreeness. here, he is no longer worrying about what parts he needs, no longer stressing over bills, no longer trying his best to forget, now he's just letting go and allowing himself some fun. 

"h-how're you feeling, man?" jongin slurs from beside him, surely enjoying his time away from his controlling spouse (which he confessed despite loving kyungsoo so, so much) and more time with alcohol, because he never really gets to go out and drink anymore, despite not usually drinking much in the first place. but here he is too, having fun while acknowledging his limits--no other people; kyungsoo is his one and only. 

"i'm fine," he replies, downing another shot. he can hold more alcohol than most of his friends and he sometimes likes to take advantage of the fact that it's either chanyeol or jongin's credit cards at his system's mercy. 

jongin grins. "seeeeee? i knew going out would do you some good? right, yeol?"

"righttttttt," the giant hiccups on his other side. "you've been so stressed lately, we knew that a night out with the boys would be a good solution. am i right, jongin, or am i right?"

"you are s-so right, my dude," he slurs before breaking out in laughter, chanyeol also doubling over in intense laughter on his other side, and sehun can't tell if it's the alcohol or not but he goes along with them. "fucking hell, we should so do this more... wait! i know! we can call it 'daddy time'!"

chanyeol reaches across and socks jongin in the shoulder. "no, we can't call it that!" he objects drunkenly. "that's what baekkie and i call our alone time. and shitttt, if he was here i would ask him to give me one of his famous lap dances like he used to back in high school." 

"if my soo was here i would so have dragged him outside by now and fucked his fat ass in that alleyway. it's a good thing we're married to 'em, man..." 

sehun watches in disgust as chanyeol and jongin bump their drinks together, laughing loudly when a large portion of the drinks spill on the floor below sehun's feet. they're all pretty wasted, those two especially, and it's good that jaehyun agreed to be their designated driver tonight because sehun feels like leaving this party of cheesy married men behind and getting lost in the music. 

"hey, guys, i'm gonna head up to the bar for a while. can you handle yourselves?"

"of course we can, sehun!" chanyeol says. "we're full--" he pauses to burp loudly, causing more laughter to erupt from the drunken duo. "f-full-grown men, we'll be fine. stop treating us like we're little kids!"

sehun wants to fire back with "speak for yourself, old man", but opts to just hop up and walk off with that dismissal. his destination is the bar, the place where all good remedies for a great time are rooted. he finds an empty seat along the perimeter, settling his broad body in one of the elevated chairs. 

"can i help you?" a short bartender asks from across the counter, slinging a towel over his shoulder. 

sehun nods, fingertips thumping against the polished wood of the bar. "uh, yeah...how about something strong? i don't have anything specific--"

"don't worry, man," the bartender interrupts. "i've got you." 

sehun mutters a _thank you_ , searching his mind for a time when he's heard that guy's name before. on the name tag that is pinned to his apron is the name 'kim minseok', which he vividly remembers baekhyun mentioning a few months back along with the word "wedding". he isn't sure, of course, if it's the same guy, but it's none of his business, anyway. tonight is not about thinking, it's about letting go and allowing himself to live. 

soon enough, the man returns, a glass in his hand with liquid in it that sehun's not even sure he can identify just from one glance. "here you are," the bartender, minseok, says, placing the glass in front of him. "it's the strongest i know of."

"well then, you must know your way around the bar, no?" he asks, holding the glass up to his lips.

minseok chuckles. "i guess you could say that. i've been at this place for years now, i can't even remember how many, though. in all the years i've had to experiment around here with all the stuff we've got, this is the best i could whip up for a pining heart." 

sehun pauses mid-sip, nearly choking on the liquid as it manages to take his breath away. but when he looks up to find the bartender to ask him what he means, the man is already long gone, helping someone else who has taken to the bar for a personalized drink. the words are heavy in his mind, making him think _what the hell?_ , and he can't manage to let go of the thought. 

this man thinks he is pining for someone? because of what, a broken heart? puh-lease. sehun has never had his heart broken. what baekhyun said did not break his heart, no, it simply made him aware of what a weakling he was in a predatory world that feeds on people who are willing to hand over it all for someone they loved. sehun did not have his heart broken...no, he did not. 

the worst thing about it is that he doesn't even know the man. he's heard things before, things like 'bartenders know exactly what kind of drink you need and you don't even need to ask for it, because they know exactly what's wrong' or 'it's just the bartender intuition', but he didn't believe a word of it. there was no way, not a chance, he was pining. who would he be pining over anyway? definitely not luhan. obviously, most definitely, absolutely not. minseok must have bad 'bartender intuition' because sehun is completely fine. 

sehun shakes off the thought, fearing that he will overthink it. with that, he once again raises the glass to his lip and drinks away the thoughts, the ideas, the memories. and holy fuck, was minseok right, this shit is strong. it's not the kind of strong that makes you want to regurgitate the second you drink it, it's the kind that burns all the way down into the pit of your stomach and stays there. it feels good--euphoric in all sorts of ways. 

it's not long before he finishes it and flags down another bartender, one that isn't minseok, and orders drinks of various concentration, downing each and every one of them until it feels like the blood in his veins is moving with the bass playing in the background. his throat burns like hell, each drink just another shot of liquid fire down his esophagus, but he pays no heed. he likes it this way, being drunk. yes, he's drunk, and he probably shouldn't be _this_ drunk, but the way the alcohol fuels him to let go and enjoy it cannot be beaten. 

his drunkenness consumes him, making him move away from the bar sooner or later, a drink in hand. he drifts through a crowd of people, maneuvering around their bodies so he wouldn't be cursed at or, most likely, assaulted. once alone in a corner with his friends nowhere to be seen, he lets loose and closes his eyes, letting the music make decisions for him. 

and just like that, sehun looses himself in the euphoric ocean he's waited years to finally feel again. 

oh, he's so going to die because of this. he so is. no matter what, joonseok cannot know. 

luhan wanders along the crowd, bumping into a few people who were drunk off their asses. he doesn't drink because he's allergic to alcohol, but he's here on a quest. he's looking for sehun and he needs to see the man now. 

now, you may be wondering, what is his logic? well, he deems telling sehun that he really likes him when he's tipsy is easier than telling him when he's not. he just hopes the taller is not completely drunk because baekhyun told him that sehun has a pretty good memory when he's drunk, but as long as he's not drunk enough to have a blackout. 

yes, he knows, it's completely stupid, but can you imagine any other way? he can't. he's been pondering this since the whole thing at the hospital, hoping there's not too much to fix in that heart of sehun's for it to be irreparable. he hopes that maybe that person that sehun was secretly in love with wouldn't find his way and maybe it was luhan's fate to fall in love with a man who definitely doesn't like him. 

sehun would yell at him, tell him he's disgusting for even thinking that he loves luhan back in any way, shape, or form, if he was in a state of complete rationality. hence, he is here, looking for sehun, in all his irrational, drunken glory.

it's now or never--tell sehun, or live with the burden of being hopelessly in love with the same someone he used to be in love with, all before he prepares to travel across the country in a few days to sign a contract with an agency that will allow him to go to leave to america and pursue his dreams there, on the real big stage. it's either this, or sehun never knows. 

fuck, he really is in some deep, deep shit. 

it's when he trips over someone's foot and falls to the floor, hearing a few drunken laughs in the wake of his collapse, that he looks up and sees the darkest pair of eyes he's ever seen. 

the mere sight of it takes his breath away, the man standing meters away from him staring down at him with such darkness swimming in those orbs. sehun doesn't even go to step forward, he simply leans against the wall, his eyes focused solely on the bashful luhan that fell to the floor. 

more embarrassed than he's even been before, luhan stands up, cringing when he sees there's chewed bubblegum on his kneecap and carefully brushes it off. he's not wearing a mask, making him feel exposed and in even deeper shit since he knows he's going to die if he gets recognized by anyone except sehun here. he can only hope that the paparazzi opted to stay home tonight, though he doubts they'll be that concerned over a soccer player. 

there's a drink in sehun's hand, a dark, repulsive liquid that has only once ever had the chance to touch luhan's lips, and he's regretted it ever since. he watches the way the taller male swirls the amber substance around in the weightless glass, his eyes predatory. it makes luhan want to cave, want to fall to his knees and cower away, as if sehun was fire burning into his skin. 

just the look in those eyes, however, draws him forward instead. he doesn't know how it happens, but he ends up in front of sehun with the taller male staring down at him with pursed lips, leaving luhan to wonder what's going through that inebriated mind. 

"luhan," the man speaks lowly. "what are you doing here?" he talks as if he was not drunk, as if his blood was not permeated by a mistake called alcohol. 

luhan gulps, a shiver running down his spine at the man's gruff voice. "i...came to find you."

"why?" sehun spits. 

"b-because i needed to tell you something, and this is the only way i could think of doing it," he says while fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, trying to think of what else to say. "look, i know this is probably the worst time to do this because you're obviously drunk, but i just needed to get something off my chest that's been there for a long time. i know you hate me and will probably hate me even more after this, but i just needed to tell you that i really, really like--"

interrupting luhan's incoherent babbling, sehun draws the smaller male in by his waist, large hands positioned on each side of him. luhan is frozen solid, rendered both speechless and immobile.

"you just go on and on for hours, don't you?" sehun mutters. 

luhan doesn't know what to do, so he does all he knows he can with the space between them (or lack thereof) and places his hands on the broad expanse of the taller's t-shirt-clad chest, but immediately regrets it. for beneath the thin fabric hanging off sehun's torso, muscles reside. he can feel them, just a mere piece of cloth away from the curious pads of luhan's fingertips. 

"w-what are you doing...?"

sehun doesn't reply, his eyes focused on luhan's own, his dark stare merciless as luhan feels everything around them begin to slip away. 

"sehun, i--"

"shh," the taller interrupts. 

luhan nods submissively, not knowing what else to do. he nearly yelps when he feels the hands wrapped tightly around his waist dip down further, past his hips, and right on his butt. he has half the mind to slap the younger man, knowing that what's happening right now isn't right, but he just can't. not with the way he feels while staring into sehun's eyes. 

suddenly, it feels like time has stopped. sehun leans forward. one hand leaves luhan's ass as cups his cheek, then sehun is kissing him. it's dirty, lowdown, and all sorts of filthy. it's a mix of bruised lips and teeth and tongue and saliva, all things that luhan would be disgusted by had he not been on the other end of the kiss, if you could even call it that. 

luhan is not drunk. he hasn't had a sip of alcohol since his eighteenth birthday, where he unfortunately discovered he was allergic to it and spent the rest of the night in a hospital room. but here, with sehun, with the taller man's arms wrapped around him and his lips not once allowing luhan to pull away, he might as well be classified as drunk. he's drunk on the taste of sehun's lips, not even bothered by the taste of what can take his life on the tip of the other's tongue. he just allows himself to be taken away, distracted, abused in all sorts of pleasurable ways. 

and before he knew it, they were no longer at the bar, but flagging down a taxi and stumbling in. 

luhan's back hits the bed harsher than he preferred it to have, but he doesn't mind. he doesn't mind the coldness of sehun's apartment, the place reminding him of a glacier, and looking from what short glances around he could manage, sehun doesn't spend much time here. he is overwhelmed by the forcefulness of the man on top of him, but he is fully consenting. it's sex with a stranger who isn't so much a stranger that is in love with someone else, wherever they might be on this earth, and he's in love with them. it's just that; it's heartbreaking.

sehun presses him down further, pulling off his clothes, making him bare. he doesn't mind it, though, because the roughness makes him think that there might be some rationality in sehun's mind at this moment, that he subconsciously knows what he's doing, and he won't be angry when he wakes up. 

luhan lays back, naked, ready to be taken and used in all sorts of way if it means it's with the one person he longed for but never expected to see again. 

shit, fuck, any word you can use to describe something remotely negative in a situation is all he can think, because it's so stupid. so, so stupid to know that here he is, under a man that despises him, under a man he loved, and still loves, after barely ten minutes of seeing each other. 

sehun isn't that gentle boy who bought a soccer player a coffee, right now he is rough with his nips on luhan's body, marking his torso with deep red, but luhan cannot get himself to stop it. he knows that he will be hurt after tonight, because in spite of the small gleam of hope he felt earlier, he knows that sehun will wake up hating him just as much as he did yesterday, perhaps even more so.

luhan can't hold back his cries because sehun is not gentle, not kind with his rough hands curling around the waistband of luhan's pants and underwear, dragging them both down and throwing them on the floor. his hands mold bruisingly over the soft skin of luhan's thighs, holding them in a tight grip as he continues to ravish the smaller's body with his mouth.

he only curls his fingers in sehun's hair when the man grabs his ass and squeezes, making him throw his head back. 

they pry his ass cheeks apart, both hands taking one globe for itself and relentlessly kneading, half-painfully and the rest pleasurably. it hurts, it hurts like hell, both figuratively and literally, because it's not like sehun's going to care any more about him after tonight than he did before, but the bruises that litter his body already will be the reminder that sehun fucked him once, though he was intoxicated, and that will be enough. 

"you like that, don't you?" sehun growls against his skin, pushing off and crawling back up the bed, only devoid of his shirt so far. luhan's eyes wander over the muscles and the abs, the way they glisten with sweat even though they haven't gotten that far, the way they curve with every pant. the man in front of him is a sculpture that should be in a museum, not hovering above him with hard and prying eyes. "don't you, luhan?"

"y-yes," luhan grits out, sighing when the taller removes his hands from his body and they go to the bedside table, sehun rummaging through the drawer. 

"good, because there's a whole lot more where that came from, and i'm going to make sure you remember every damn second of it." 

sehun pulls a bottle of lube and a condom from his nightstand, popping open the cap and letting the cold, translucent liquid drizzle over his fingers with an almost crazed look in his eyes. luhan knows now, just as he did minutes ago, that he would regret this in the morning. he heard jongin talking to sehun when he was walking down the stairs at the inn; the boy's a virgin and this is him now claiming that card. but sehun would now forever suffer with the memory that the person he hates took his virginity when it should be the person he loved, and luhan will long live with regret for letting it happen. 

he winces the moment he feels the cold substance in a place he'd prefer not to feel it, but in order to walk away from this night with no concerning injuries, luhan endures it. 

when he feels two long fingers inside him, he throws his head back. it is both painful and pleasant. trust luhan, he's no virgin, he had his fair share of nights out where they did a little more than just dancing and he found himself in bed with several people; one women who had really, really weird kinks, one guy who got off on luhan crying, and he once woke up in a bed with two men and an extremely sore body and a terrible taste in his mouth. so, yeah, in short, luhan's been through this drill a thousand times (not with the ladies, of course), but it's been a long time. the worst part about it, though, is the fact that it will be one of the only nights he truly remembers, though it won't be for a good reason. 

sehun is soon scissoring him open, the sting and the stretch a million times more pleasant to handle than the hands of someone he doesn't even know or has never talked to. 

luhan moans and arches his back at the third finger, slender and much smaller hands falling from sehun's hair to travel up the veiny forearms, curling around the bulging biceps, and finally landing on his muscled back. he can feel the way sehun's back muscles morph with every slam of his fingers back into luhan, every jab of his calloused fingertips and blunt nails against the sensitive walls of his insides. 

"fuck..." the soccer player cries, biting his lip when sehun leans down to suckle at the skin of his neck, leaving marks for any and everyone to see. 

sehun silences his noises, however, and kisses luhan. gently. for once in the night, luhan feels the soft lips of oh sehun on his own, and they calm him. they make him relax, his muscles rendered useless by the sheer power and comfort of the kiss. then, luhan thought, maybe sehun did care. 

when sehun's fingers leave him gaping, he opens his eyes, watching the taller pull back and fumble with his pants. his belt jingles as he works diligently to somehow rip it off. but his patience grows too thin for him, so luhan, on a whim, sits up and assists him, much more brilliant fingers able to undo it. sehun just stares at him the whole time, eyes filled with wonder and many other things that luhan cannot simply recognize from his current position. 

the mechanic is quick to push luhan back when he's done, jerking down his jeans. luhan can see it from a mile away through black underwear, and when he pulls off his underwear, luhan is left speechless. the taller is remarkably big, standing tall and proud with his erection up to his stomach with pure arousal. but before luhan can spend too much time gaping in awe, he's diving right back down, smashing his lips against the soccer player's. 

"tell me if it hurts," sehun growls lowly as he then pulls away from the heated kiss and buries his face in luhan's neck. the other nods, hands desperately clutching sehun's broad shoulders in both anticipation and fearfulness. sehun must've watched a lot of porn, because he looks and sounds pretty prepared as he swiftly reaches down and slips on a condom and lubes up his cock.

and then he goes in, one torturous inch at a time drilling straight into luhan. he lets out a pained moan, fingers digging deeper into sehun's skin with every movement inside him. it hurts like hell, tears and splits him apart from the inside out, but to have someone he cherishes so much despite them having such little time together (and what little time they had being very tense) inside him has him keening. sehun, a man he has waited six years for to suddenly come along and be his prince charming all over again, a man he met once but instantly fell for, is inside him. 

"ah, fuck," sehun groans deeply in his ear. "you're so fucking t-tight."

luhan just pants, his back arched. the size is all too much, way too overwhelming. 

they sit like that, in silence, sehun buried deep inside of luhan, for a few minutes before luhan gives two very shaky taps on sehun's shoulder that can only indicate that he can move. so the taller accepts, hips drawing back and out of that precious heat, before he takes his first step into the world that is sensuality, and thrusts back in. 

luhan is unable to take it, feeling a silent scream being ripped right through him. no noise leaves him, no words or sounds or pleads to stop or keep going, he just arches into sehun's hold on his hips, an equally bruising grip as before. 

sehun continues, making the same movements, only getting faster. he pulls back and slams in faster, his only fuel being the want to hear his name called by the most beautiful person under him, all in his half-drunken, half-sober daze. he only rams back in, loving the way the smaller's insides welcome him back in every single time. 

luhan's silent screams last no longer when sehun hits his prostate and he lets out breathy moans, strangled ones and desperate ones, some even being real screams. he can feel his heart racing in his chest. not because sex is actually a pretty good workout through losing water-weight, but because he's so close, so far beyond limits with this man who he was apart from for so fucking long. 

the taller becomes faster as they both get closer to their orgasms, addicted to the feeling of each other and wanting nothing but more of it. the sounds of skin against skin resonates through the room rhythmically, in sync with every single one of sehun's animalistic thrusts into him. 

sehun grunts in his ear when he comes, filling up the condom while riding his high and helping luhan achieve his own. then, luhan comes with a scream, white liquid covering both of their stomachs as sehun quickly pulls out, falling beside luhan on his bed that's barely big enough for the both of them. 

the taller makes quick work of the condom, tying it and tossing it into the trashcan beside his bed, as if he's been preparing for this moment for his whole life, and he probably has. 

he lays one last kiss on a sleepy luhan's lips, gentle and harmless. but his words sting when he pulls away, collapsing back onto his pillow and falling asleep, leaving luhan wide-awake. 

_"i still hate you."_

now, luhan knows there's a lot more to it than just the whole thing about jobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA


	9. Bruises

sehun groans, rolling over on his stomach as his head begins to pound. it's like there's a drum in his skull, relentlessly playing. everything echoes against his skill; the disruptive crinkling of plastic from somewhere in the room, the occasional noisy squeal of his old ceiling fan, a soft groan from beside him-- _wait_.

sehun hasn't lived with anyone since he was eighteen (forgetting the time when chanyeol lived in his home). one of the first things he did when both he and his mother coped with the loss of his father was gather up all his money and search in the paper for available apartments. lucky for him, he ran into an ad for an apartment with a cheap rent, pretty okay furnishing, a bit of a rat problem that could be disregarded until a better alternative was found, and his absolute favorite: no roommate. oh sehun moved a grand total of three times after that, all paid for with his own hard-earned money.

but he's never had a roommate, has never wanted one or felt the need for one. well, with the exception of chanyeol.

so who was lying in his bed, next to him?

though the pain shooting through his head and body in sharp intervals was completely and utterly overwhelming, he was able to crack open an eyelid. his view was blurry for a few good seconds, the world spinning as his eyes became adjusted to the light spewing through his windows.

his eyes meet the pale skin of someone's back, and almost in a death-like way, his heart stopped like he's been pierced with the furious and merciless metal of pointed bullet. the bones were prominent on the curve of the man's back, a mop of brown hair resting on the pillow beside his. from his view of the person's rather narrow shoulders, he has a faint idea of what their neck looks like--marked and dotted with red spots, bruises covering every inch of what he can see.

sehun swears he could've died had he forgotten to breathe that very moment, but in his good (or maybe not-so-good) fortune, he is still very much alive.

he stares and stares, unable to move or open his mouth or freak out and totally push this intruder off his bed. it takes time, quite a few minutes actually, until sehun realizes what this means.

he, the oh sehun, the angel, the maknae, the baby, _the 24-year-old virgin_ , is now one thing short of what he was yesterday, and the day before that, and the year before that, and the decade before that. oh sehun is no longer a virgin, either way last night went in his drunken experience, he was stripped of the one thing he promised he was going to give away to the person he loved. for your virginity is something to be valued, it's commonly your last image of purity that remains, but he gave his away to a _stranger_ he most likely met at the _club_.

suddenly, the figure from beside him stirs, a quiet whimper escaping _his_ lips. sehun cannot recognize him, at least not with his mind-blowing hangover, and stays still. the man's neck arches, as if to stretch out tense muscles despite his mostly comfortable-looking position. sehun sees more hickies, ones he is able to recognize from the constant sight of seeing chanyeol and baekhyun wearing them in their earlier days, kyungsoo mostly having his on his chest because he hates the curious eyes of intrusive people, and jongin having them all over when sehun used to hang out with him more.

his eyes shift down, his black duvet only managing to cover the other male up to his hips, exposing dark and terrifying bruises going upwards from there. they look painful, but sehun soon comes to the understanding that they're from _him_. he left those marks on the guy's body, because there's no else lying in this bed with them. it would've been impossible.

sehun's breath is knocked out of him when the male rolls onto his back, the sight unable to leave his mind. there's a perfect angle to his nose, nice and slighly pointed. there's a pair of thin, pink lips that look swollen and just as bruised as the rest of him. and there's an indisputable sharp jawline that has sehun's blood boiling--whether in rage or excitement, he's not quite sure.

because beside him lays luhan; the famous, beautiful, 27-year-old soccer player sehun used to love for two years straight, and hated for four.

when luhan's eyelids creep open, they immediately widen at the sight of them, together in a bed, naked for no one but each other to see.

"what the fuck!" the reaction doesn't even come from luhan. it comes from the mechanic who now lays on the floor, curling an arm under his head to calm the irritation there from hitting on the ground.

"oh my--sehun!" he can hear luhan groan softly, most likely at the pain he feels, before his head pops up over the edge of the mattress, peering down at sehun with a strange look in his eyes. "are you okay?"

"am i okay? am i okay?!" he shouts. "no, i'm not okay! what the fuck are you doing here, in my house!" well, it would take a complete idiot or someone under twelve years old not to figure what happened at first glance. if the nudity and the bruises on luhan's hips are no real idication, ruffled material of sehun's sheets are, as well as the various spots of a dry, white substance on the black comforter most definitely are.

luhan seems to be caught in a crossroads in his mind. he bites his lip and takes a deep breath, his eyes radiating pure misery. "i'm not really sure you want me to answer that question--"

"just--" sehun interrupts himself to cover his face with his hands, wishing they were a pillow he could scream into. "ah, just shut up! how about that?"

with all his rage, he attempts to stand up, dizzy and stumbling while doing so. the world spins around him. is it really his dresser in front of him? if so, why is there two of them?

"are you okay?" luhan cautiously asks him again.

sehun turns to him once he straightens himself out, seeing the other boy sitting in his bed, trying his best not to reach out and touch the bruises on his neck and his chest, ones from his hands on his waist and even more vibrant on his hips. he, as much as he dislikes luhan, wants to know how many go on beneath the duvet. he wonders if it really should be luhan asking him that question, instead of the other way around. because as much pain as it might cause him to know he lost his virginity to _luhan_ , from the looks of it, it appears he didn't treat luhan so nicely.

"i-i'm fine," sehun groans. "just...why the fuck are you still here? isn't that how one-night-stands work? we have sex, we get our respective releases, and one leaves, then you never see each other again! shouldn't you be gone by now?" sehun angrily grits out, his feelings on what happened mixed.

luhan averts his eyes. "sehun, i--"

"you, what? it's as simple that."

"no, please let me finish--"

sehun laughs. "this is finished. this is done. you should get your ass up and out of my apartment, go back to your perfect, infamous life, and never come here again! leave, and never come back! i'm sure you were just as drunk as i was last night, so let's just end this here. right here, right now."

luhan's gaze lingers on him, as if begging for him to allow him to speak, but he says nothing.

"go. i'll finish your car by tomorrow, and i want this to be the last time i see you. don't come back here. go back to seoul and do what my friend couldn't, go live your life and stay the fuck away from us."

he turns away when luhan is getting out of bed, the sight of the bruises he left behind being too much. sehun bites his lip like he can hear, see, and feel the limp luhan is sporting as he shuffles into his clothes, ripped and dirty from the night before.

now, chanyeol's words linger in his mind.

_before you regret it._

well, it's too late now. because luhan is shutting the door gently behind him, not even bothering to object to sehun's words as if it was his place to do so, not even bothering to tell him how utterly childish he was being. how rude he was being. how _selfish_ he was being.

luhan never did anything. he was just there. he came to this town coincidentally. sure, maybe he brought up a bad topic around sehun that made him defensive, but shit...chanyeol was right. he also did bad. he also hurt luhan by telling him what he did was worthless. that was not true, not by any means. luhan may play soccer for a living, but he does it with passion, with love, and with happiness; things he encourages in everyone else.

maybe, four years ago, he would've been happy. he would've been overjoyed that he just lost his virginity to luhan, the person he _loves_ , of all people. but now he is filled with nothing but regret.

he sighs, still standing in his own complete nakedness, and allows himself to fall back against the bed. he should cringe when his back hits the mattress, he should be disgusted by the smell of (what he thinks is) sex lingering on it, but he isn't. he can only replay the scene in his mind, the "you were just as drunk as i was last night."

one of the main things he remembers from luhan's biography was that he is allergic three things. seafood, almonds, and alcohol.

alcohol.

that means luhan remembers _everything_.

the air of the inn is warm when luhan opens the door, enters, and then shuts it. the cold weather reminds him of the night nearly two weeks ago when sehun picked he and his manager up. that's how he ended up here, in this beautiful town that seemed like heaven to him. now he's met people he won't ever forget; baekhyun, chanyeol, their many, many children, kyungsoo and jongin and taeoh, and yes, easily the most memorable of all, oh sehun.

the pain he feels, however, is capable of blocking the cheerful mood of the parks' cozy and homey inn. it manages to make him see the bad side of everything; the peeling of the paint on the door, the strange layout of the house in general, and the way baekhyun sits in a chair by the fire, as if he was waiting for luhan to come back to inn the whole time.

"welcome back," baekhyun greets, though his voice is strained. his eyes sweep over luhan, over his completely ruined image. and he does so peacefully hugging his newborn close to his chest, his long and slender fingers brushing through short strands of silky black hair.

luhan can't say anything, can't move either. he just stands with his wrinkled and ripped clothes from yesterday on his body, making the situation look a thousand times worse than it is.

when baekhyun gets the gist that he's not going to do or say something in return, he sighs. "in the bathroom there's a change of clothes waiting for you. i suggest you take a shower and get clean before you change into them, though. then you can come out here and enjoy a cup of tea with me, and maybe tell me what i need to know." baekhyun could tell, could tell from how luhan didn't come home last night and since chanyeol told him luhan was last seen with sehun, that sehun would make things rough. luhan is nothing short of that.

so luhan does what baekhyun asks. he finds his way into the downstairs bathroom, shuffling out of his ruined clothes. he washes off the remnants of the night before left on his body, a bit of a panic spreading through him when he realizes that it's a possibility that sehun could've finished inside of him, but he evidently didn't. he was thankful, even though he was mad at sehun, that the younger had enough responsibility to wear and condom. though the bruises may sting, he at least won't end up like baekhyun did in his story.

then, he joins baekhyun for tea in the living room. a steaming cup is already there for him when he arrives.

baekhyun merely nods at him to sit down, too immersed in caressing the skin of his son's cheek to pay him much mind even though he acknowledges he's there.

luhan feels as though he is intruding when baekhyun smiles down at his baby and begins to sing. his voice is beautiful, sweet as he serenades them. the child's eyelids droop at the sound of his papa's smooth and comforting voice, not like his taller father's gruff one that he heard when the taller whispered to him that night in the kitchen, the night that luhan also felt like an intruder.

chanhyun is back to sleep in no time, laying silently on his carrier's chest. luhan wants to be loved as much as the baby is being loved right now, wants to be held and whispered and sang to in the wee hours of the morning that he probably shouldn't be awake in, but time is inevitable.

"you know," baekhyun starts. "i don't think i've ever told you the story of how my husband and i came to be."

luhan shakes his head, hesitantly reaching for the tea sitting on the coffee table and bringing the scorching liquid to his lips.

"well, i've told you about a lot that happened in the very in the middle, but i'm not so sure i've informed you of the very beginning or the end." baekhyun strokes his son's back, raising his gaze to look at the older man. "this, this is a story i don't have to trust you with. there's no secret to it, just true love."

true love? why would luhan need to know about true love?

"when my husband and i first met, we weren't exactly on good terms. i was the new kid in town, he was the lanky kid that always fell flat on his face in gym class. he asked for my number in some...weird way, and i messed with him in return. but believe me, if it were up to me, i would've said yes immediately.

"my parents have always been a little...disapproving, and by disapproving, i mean they disliked anyone who had no "real" chance out in the real world. they had to be straight-a students, rich-boy football players, ivy league prospects, or it was a no from the very beginning."

baekhyun smiled, leaning back in his chair as his eyes become dreamy. "but i was always into their idea of 'outcasts'. and suddenly, on my first day at school, i met a wide-eyed giant who told he couldn't find my number in his phone. it was some stupid, cheesy variation of asking me out. but...i gave him my brother's number instead."

luhan's eyebrows furrow in confusion. why would baekhyun have refused chanyeol then if he was so attracted to him? if he was so drawn to the outcasts his parents disliked so much?

"i bet you're wondering why i said no," baekhyun chuckles. "well, imagine what my parents would've thought! i mean, my whole life i've been told who i should like and who i shouldn't, who was worth my time and who wasn't. i had a lot to thank my parents for at that time, really, for giving me the life i've always wanted, thus why i didn't accept chanyeol's proposition." he snuggles chanhyun close, his heartbeat like a melody for the sleeping baby boy he holds.

"i still don't understand," luhan says. "couldn't you have just hidden it from them?"

baekhyun nods. "i thought about that. i thought about that stupidly tall boy who embarrassed both me and himself that day in the lunchroom. but...for some reason, i couldn't allow myself to say yes. so...one day, when i was just lying in my room, there comes my brother with this giant in tow, and i find out that it took him weeks to work up the nerve to call "my" number. i later found out he liked music, that he wanted to grow up and be a musician. and let's just say that from that day on, i found my new best friend."

luhan raises an eyebrow. "how'd that work? if he was desperate for your number, and you were attracted to him even though you couldn't have him?"

the slightly younger smiles. "that's a good question. i am not really sure how we managed, myself, when we always had eyes for each other. but that lasted for almost three years before, on one very special valentine's day, my best friend kissed me. that was the start of it all. the start of everything that made me happy, but also the same things that ruined me. in all truth, most people on the see the happy side of love, but not the dark side. deep, deep down there's agony and pain, and i learned that the hard way. it had me thinking...what if i had just given him my number, then would i be happy? what i had just never met him, would i be happy? what if i just never came here? and every damn time, i got the answer i never thought i wanted: no. everything happens for a reason, just as you said in the hospital when you thought i was asleep. there's agony, there's definitely an ugly side of love that i hope i never have to see again, but really...in order to really know it's love, luhan, you have to go through things together--whether physically together or not."

 _i'm getting carried away_ , baekhyun thinks.

"seven years ago," baekhyun begins again, his topic shifting like the clouds in the sky. "i had a boyfriend. this boyfriend of mine apparently bought me a ring. a promise ring. but that's the funny thing about it...yeol was never very good at keeping his promises. so fate had worked its magic, and i never got this ring. a year later, i had no boyfriend. but i had a little boy. and two years after that, i meet a man named chanyeol. he wasn't the same chanyeol i had years before that, there was something different. a year after that, after everything, he gives me a ring. not a promise ring. instead, he called it the 'i love you' ring, because he was never good at making promises, but this ring, the same one from years and years before, would always respresent his love for me; limitless, everlasting, _undying_. i now never doubt my husband's love for me, but if i were to ever do so, this ring; this simple, wholeheartedly-made ring that sits upon my finger is the pure and infinite manifestation of his love for me. our children, every one of them, is mine to him. they're my love for him."

"'love at first sight' sounds crazy, luhan. but that doesn't mean it's not real. sure, it's better to get to know someone before you run off getting married, having kids, and living wildly. but it's not impossible to look into someone's eyes and see a future you could never imagine with anyone else in them. it happened to my husband and i, and based upon my observations, it's happened to you..."

luhan is tense when baekhyun's eyes settle on him. they're not unnerving to him, they don't make him anxious or compelled to jump up and leave the room. they are welcoming and motherly, eyes that resemble the aura of a safe space. like a coffee shop in the winter, with large windows to watch the snowfall through, with steaming coffees and teas to warm up with, with cookies and donuts to indulge in. everything about this baekhyun, in comparison to the pregnant one that had no filter, compared to the one who spoke in complete sarcasm at dinner the other night, is comforting. baekhyun does not judge him.

"sehun still has the shirt," baekhyun whispers abruptly, taking a sip of his tea immediately after, as though pretending he never said anything at all.

luhan gapes. "what?"

"the shirt from the airport," he says. "covered in coffee stains. yeah, he still has it. as much as he tries to avoid it, tries to hide it at the bottom of that drawer, he's not the one that finds it. it finds him."

 _it_ finds him. almost like how luhan sometimes thinks of throwing his away, the white fabric ruined by a big, ugly brown stain. somehow, however, he cannot. it's not just any ratty t-shirt he could replace with a new one; it's the one he was standing in when he met the handsome, tall stranger at the airport, who looked like he was about to pee his pants when he ended up on top of luhan. it's the one he was in when his eyes met another pair, nervous but so incredibly beautiful. at this time, sehun was an 18-year-old boy, luhan was a 22-year-old man. was it their fate to meet and fall for each other before they even knew each other's names? or was it coincidence? whatever it was, he didn't find this town with sehun in it, the town found _him_.

"luhan, i shouldn't be telling you this, but who am i to follow rules? i literally make them around this house," baekhyun chuckles before he turns serious again. "things are not as they seem. sehun is not as he seems. despite the bruises he left behind, despite all the worry and pain this will all cause you, sehun has always loved you. _always_ has. i may have been the change in oh sehun, but i can assure you that a few harsh words didn't take away love. love is everlasting, the only thing that pieces us all together when we fall apart. whatever happens in these next two days as you near the day you check-out, let those words rest on your mind. things are never as they seem. if you leave here in two days for the other side of the country and the world, the same way you came, it must be a decision of fate. but fate can go two ways; either it never happens and that boy never owns up to his ignorance, or sehun needs some time to figure himself out. he's just starting."

"just...somewhere, deep, deep down inside old, bitter sehun, there's a little bit of love, and the only way i can tell you how to handle this is to let things fall into place. sometimes fate isn't to be reckoned with, and maybe this is sehun's punishment for doing so all those years ago, a favor i'm now trying my hardest to make up for... just wait. that's all i can say. wait--time is essential."

and who would've thought that a few days ago, it was luhan giving sehun a piece of advice? who would've thought the lesson-giver would be given a lesson, much less one about love? was luhan the one chanyeol spoke about that day in the kitchen? the one that found himself in the most unexpected place?

luhan sips his tea with a far-away look in his eyes, with the thick material of his shirt covering marks that wouldn't matter, not if sehun didn't love him. luhan doesn't know whether or not to really accept baekhyun's answer, to believe it, but he trusts baekhyun. he got to know him in a few weeks, and though baekhyun appears to be dramatic and overly sarcastic, he really knows how to give advice. maybe it's because he's been through a lot himself and he believes it's important to share and help others, to inspire.

"care to join me for some breakfast?" baekhyun asks, cradling the baby in his arms as he stands up from his chair with the help of his walking stick. "i've got five children, i have nearly anything you can think of."

luhan shrugs, letting the words sink in as baekhyun leads him to the kitchen, insisting that he sits down while baekhyun prepares something easy that he can do with his incision. he's admittedly not the best cook, but then again, neither is baekhyun (according to kyungsoo). luhan feels bad about having baekhyun cook when he gave birth almost a whole week ago.

soon, baekhyun sits down with him, the baby asleep in his mobile cradle since baekhyun brought them to the kitchen. he gives luhan a glass of orange juice and raises his glass, but luhan notices that baekhyun happens to be drinking a strong-smelling liquid that can only be identified as alcohol. he's drinking alcohol this early in the morning?

"what?" he asks with a chuckle. "four pregnancies, luhan. four. i like to let loose sometimes too." the elder just smiles and laughs with him, raises his glass to let it bump against baekhyun's. "to boy problems."

"to boy problems," luhan repeats, secure with the thought that time heals all wounds. hopefully, that was true.


	10. Tough Pill to Swallow

the next day luhan wakes up, it's to the sound of a shitty pick-up truck. 

he can almost memorize the sound after hearing it several times over the duration of his nearly two-week stay at the park inn. the way the engine rumbles, the way the rusty, squeaky frame reminds luhan of a night that happened almost a full day ago. it's a sound he will remember for the rest of his life.

though he is still tired and disoriented, with sleep still evident in the way his body can barely move without making a sound akin to that of a crumbling sculpter, he pulls himself out of bed and peels back the curtains, looking out at the ground covered in the remnants of now-gray snow. but sitting there, in the driveway of the parks' home, is the same familiar truck. 

he doesn't remember how it happens, but a second later he finds himself racing down the steps, clad in his robe that he tightly clutches to hide what skin his oversized night clothes fail to. he throws open the door, the chill of the winter air sending shivers down his spine. he clenches the hand he has in his pocket, his fingers wrapped around the leather booklet he managed to fish out of his bag in all his desperation from moments ago.

it all makes him want to stop. should he really be doing this? in spite of all baekhyun's words, luhan still thinks of how sehun treats him. he still thinks of sehun's disgust, of his rejection, of his anger, and of his resentfulness. he still thinks of his soreness, of his bruised hips and thighs, of his even worse tattered heart and feelings, of the mess his mind is in. and whose fault is it for everything? sehun's. 

at the same time, however, it was not sehun's fault for luhan's mistakes. of his walking into a club, surrounded by countless drunk strangers, and letting an inebriated, anger-infused oh sehun fuck the living daylights out of him when he could've been smarter, could've cared more. it was his fault for nearly everything that happened, for his coming here, for sehun's attitude. whose fault was it, then? oh, yeah, _his_.

luhan tries to think about what baekhyun would say, what he would do if he were in luhan's place (which is actually pretty uncomfortable to think about, because the younger is married). he would probably say _hey, yeah, this was your fault, but you both need to hold yourselves accountable for what is happeing, and come to a consensus on how to fix it_. oh, how he wishes it would work that way. how he wishes you could just come to agreement so easily. though things may make sense when we look at them from the inside, they may be completely different from the outside. like how luhan and sehun are both here, right in the same place, which gives them the perfect opportunity to work things out this very instance, but there's exterior issues that concern the future. what about luhan leaving in a day? what about sehun forgetting about the world and drowning himself in beer and work? what about their strained feelings for each other they can't seem to bear to admit? what about everything?

finding no improvement, luhan just takes a deep breath and slips on the sandals he uses when he doesn't want to wear his cleats all the time. sehun is bent over the trailer attached to the rear of his truck, probably tightening things and securing the hitch since it would make no sense to disconnect the trailer if he was just going to pull it back to the garage.

the sound of snow crunching underneath the weight of luhan's feet is what causes sehun to freeze, making the elder afraid that he's completely fucked up, which he probably has. 

sehun's head tilts to the side ever so slightly, and luhan can see the way his tongue is poking the inside of his cheek, as if he's asking himself if he should ignore luhan standing there or if he should, most likely, yell at him to go away. 

but he is most surprised when sehun does neither. he does, however, continue his work, but not before he audibly exhales even from how far away luhan is from him. "you shouldn't be out here," he says quietly. "it's too cold." 

the way he acts, how he can't seem to make up his mind, how he is a two-faced son of bitch makes luhan wants to deliver a hard punch to his stupidly attractive face, but doesn't. because he isn't here to start a war, or continue one, but to somewhat settle things with sehun before he makes the decision he's dreamt of making since he fell in love with soccer. 

luhan doesn't say anything, just picks up his steps again and advances towards sehun before he stations himself a few feet away. he can see the way sehun's grip tightens around the chains he is tangling around the connector to keep it tight. 

"didn't know you did delivery," he comments almost humorlessly. 

sehun raises a hand to run it through his hair. "i don't," the mechanic replies. 

luhan cocks an eyebrow. "really? i guess i'm lucky, then." 

"look," sehun nearly growls. "i'm here to give you vehicle back in the repaired state i promised it would be in, okay? let's not makes this harder than it has to be." he walks away, supposedly done with whatever task he'd been doing. 

"it doesn't have to be hard," luhan answers, standing still. "i know you don't like me"-- _or do you?_ \--"but let's at least try to be civil with one another. if we act otherwise, we'll just be standing here arguing all day long." 

sehun grunts out a gruff laugh, circling around the other side of the trailer to do whatever. "i would prefer that way, thank you very much. you have no significance to me."

as much luhan hates to hear that, as much as he despises the sharp-tongued side of sehun that never fails to berate him. out of all the people in the world that could get under luhan's skin, it's sehun. it just has to be sehun that looks down on him like he's the bug under the taller's shoe, like he's the rat and sehun's is in possession of the mousetrap. it just has to be this guy, the one he barely knows, but the one he still manages to love. "even if i don't, you should at least talk to me like i exist."

"sorry," sehun says. "i don't talk to people i'll spend only one night with before i completely forget about them. i also don't talk to people who do desperate things."

that...that last one catches luhan's attention, making him straighten his shoulders and become silent. what did he mean by that? even worse, what did he know about that? sure, he definitely knew he slept with luhan from how he woke up next to him, naked as the day he was born, but did he...know? did he know that luhan doesn't drink strictly because one small sip could mean the end of his life? baekhyun has told luhan so much, informed him of so many small yet vital things, but there were some serious pieces missing in this puzzle. 

"what's wrong?" sehun asks condescendingly, his tone one that luhan does not like. "cat got your tongue?" 

"what the hell would you know about being desperate?" luhan grits out, losing the part of him that wanted things to be peaceful. "you know nothing, literally _nothing_ , about me."

sehun snorts. "nothing, really. just that somebody who can't drink alcohol because they're allergic shouldn't be messing around with a guy in a club who's drunk off his ass, and absolutely detests you." 

luhan's face contorts into one of anger. "and how would you know that, huh? what have you been doing huddled up in your little garage, stalking me?" 

sehun narrows his eyes in a short glance toward the soccer player. "i have my ways."

"like that's not any more concerning!" luhan shouts, following sehun as the mechanic uses quick hands start messing with straps that look like they never end. "hey, i'm talking to you!

the taller rolls his eyes, continuing his work. "i don't give a fuck what's concerning or not to you, except if it involves you getting the fuck out of this town. i think you've done enough," he says, leaning against the trailer when there's nothing left to unstrap and he finds himself in a pickle. he doesn't know where to go. 

luhan wants to scoff. wants to to say, to ask, _what have i ever done to you?_ because that's the real question, the biggest of all, what did luhan ever do to sehun? what did he do in the years they weren't able to meet again that made this hateful, ignorant man abhor him so much from the very center of his black, crumbled, cement-crafted heart? 

"i have never done anything to you," luhan objects. 

"you haven't," sehun admits. "but it's a hell of a lot easier to get rid of the problem before it starts." 

so that's what sehun sees luhan as? a little problem? an issue? just another plague in his life? that's exactly what he was. he didn't even do anything--sehun was just superstitious. sehun has trust issues, ones luhan couldn't even try to understand, and worst of all, luhan knew nothing about it. so how could he help him? what could he do at this point? maybe it was his fate to _nothing_ , and move on with his life instead. 

"what? you got nothing to say for yourself?" asks sehun, turning to look at luhan with that burning, sinister look in his eyes. "think of it like this--you treat an infection before it worsens, no? you're the infection i don't want anything to do with, so i'm preventing it. did you get the memo yet?" 

yes, it was impossible not to have gotten the memo. sehun told him bluntly--he didn't know him, didn't even try to understand him, and yet he was making a big deal about everything. 

luhan was silent for a while, not even bothered by the cold seeping through the thin material of his robe. his toes didn't even freeze with nothing to cover them. the words just burnt his heart. 

"you're an asshole, did you know that?" he bitterly replies as his flesh feels like it's boiling beneath his skin, urging him to scratch it even though it doesn't need it. 

sehun just grins. "you think your opinion matters to me? i couldn't give less of a shit what you think about me. fuck off."

then, just then, as the air begins to get colder and the icy feeling seeps into his skin, luhan snaps. it feels like a demon pulsing through him, trying to find all the good ways to get out, but it can't. so it takes over his body, it captures his soul, and it tells his mind that this was sehun's last chance. he cannot, will not, handle any more of it. 

"can't you just be nice for once?!" his bubble of patience bursts and out creeps the fog of anger, resentment, unhappiness. "what happened to you? i never knew you in the first place, but you're some kind of two-faced motherfucker who's on my last nerve! you have crossed the line in every way possible, even when i'm trying to be nice to you, sucking it all up to impress you, when i'm trying to say something that will help you, and all you can do is treat me like i'm the shit you stepped in this morning that you can't get off your shoe!"

even the mechanic is shocked at his outburst. he stares at luhan, stoic features replaced with shocked ones. luhan's anger only grows, his fists ball up, and he's standing face-to-face with the taller male, not even caring that he hasn't brushed his teeth yet. 

"well, i'll tell you what, oh sehun. i'm done pretending; for you, the cameras, for my manager, for the world. i'm done dealing with the way you treat even though you don't know me, even though you don't care to think that maybe i'm not who you think i am! you have fucked me up just enough in the two weeks i've been here, and i don't know a single reason why you do it, but it's done. it's all done. i'm done with your shit, i'm done with you. you felt weak all those years ago when baekhyun made fun of you, but you know what's really weak? the way you act right now. the way you are. go ahead, sehun, go submerge yourself in your work. i don't know, maybe you should fucking marry it! because the rest of the world is going on without you, so go ahead and be alone. i- i don't want you anyway." 

he sends one last menacing look at sehun before he turns right around and starts making his way to the house, where he plans to pack up and drag joonseok out of bed, apologize to baekhyun and chanyeol and all their kids, then leave. but when his breath gets caught and his eyes start stinging, a large hand grabs his wrist and makes him stop. 

he turns back to sehun, the other male looking at him with eyes luhan can't really seem to place. "luhan--"

"leave me alone!" he shouts at the younger. "stop looking at me like that and let go of me!"

"will you stop yelling--"

suddenly there's a stinging sensation on sehun's cheek, a hand print in its wake that will likely remain there for a few days. he can barely comprehend what happened when he feels the other jerk his arm out of his grasp, stepping away from sehun but not abandoning him.

"i really shouldn't be crying right now," luhan says. "i shouldn't. because a bastard like you isn't worth my tears. you're not worth my anything, obviously. not my help, not my advice, not my body, and definitely not my feelings. i shouldn't even be saying this to you, i should let you sit here and wonder what the hell just happened. it's not my job to care about an asshole who cares about no one but himself. so you know what? i'm leaving." 

sehun raises his gaze from the grayish slush on the ground, finding that luhan's tears have not trailed down his face. he kept them in, he concealed them, and he wouldn't show them. nope, not to sehun. 

"but, before i go, you want to know something else?" luhan taunts, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out. "you're impossible to forget. those eyes you have--they're mesmerizing. when i first met you all those years ago, i thought i liked you. i really liked you. they say 'love at first sight' is just another story people like to tell, but what matters is if it's your own story you're telling. this is mine. but now, now that i've seen what you're like, how you act, how _cruel_ you can truly be, i think i might remember you for a different reason. i'll remember you for being the son of a bitch you are. the sick bastard you are. and you know what? i'm the real weakling here, because i fell for someone like you. you're selfish, sehun. and if you love yourself so much, you should have this." 

the last thing he did was take the little leather-bound booklet he held and dropped it at sehun's feet, then he walked away, wrapping his arms around himself as he blinked away tears. no, he wouldn't cry over sehun. he would not show weakness to the younger male. he would not falter. he did not train tirelessly, did not suffer through blood, sweat, and tears just to be forced down on his knees by an arrogant mechanic. he was done being demoted, done allowing himself to treated that way. he was a human being with the ordinary respect for himself, just not enough to cut off sehun's vicious harassment earlier. 

after watching the elder walk through the door to the without a look back at him, sehun's fingers curled around the booklet, picking it up and wiping it off. he flips to the first page, finding a picture of him. it was him when he was young and dumb, naive and vulnerable. he wants to laugh, wants to giggle about how different he looks now than he did then. but he can't get himself to do it. not when he looks up from it, facing the house. because he sees baekhyun looking out the window, leaning against the cane he uses to stand, with nothing but disappointment written on his face.

the mechanic sits back on the couch, fresh from his shower. it's funny, it really is, that just ten minutes ago he was getting in the shower to wash away the memories of today, but now he's doing it all over again in just a different way. 

he twists the cap of the bottle in his grip, hearing the pop and then the horrible stench that follows after but still manages to pull him in. he holds the bottle up to his lips, nearly gagging at the taste. one could call him an alcoholic--he drinks almost everyday. call him irresponsible, but the garage sometimes even faces his drunk wrath. sometimes people's cars do. drinking has just become a habit, one he couldn't escape from no matter how hard he tries, though he hasn't really even done that. sobriety, at this point, isn't really a cave he thinks he can venture into. or maybe it's a cave of addiction that he can't seem to venture out of.

sehun switches on the tv, not interested in the news, not in the random shows put together in clusters, not in anything. so sehun just settles for whatever channel he was on last and takes a swig of his beer, letting himself feel what it does to his blood like a syringe injecting an addictive drug into him. it feels like sugar mixing in with his blood, only, it burns. it feels like fire crawling under his skin, like fire scorching every part of his throat. it was like fire temporarily ridding him of today, of his passport, of _luhan_.

that, just luhan, triggers a few more. and soon sehun finds himself drinking four beers, mind swirling as the room turns to a blur. all he can see is the tv, the sports channel, the headline that clearly states 'seoul national's lu han to sign with american team', before he feels his blood boiling, his veins feeling like they're about to burst. 

the next things he knows he's grabbing the only bottle left in the six-pack, throwing the bottle and letting it hit the wall and splash all over the floor. he feels like ripping everything he owns to shreds, crushing glass, and burning every paper, every photo, he feels like talking to his dad...

who would've known it would be oh sehun who drove luhan from this town? who would've known it would be him who ruined things for himself? who would've thought he would resemble his old best friend, the one that everyone expected would never come back? the one that feared coming home until he actually came. well, everyone _except_ sehun knew it would happen. they all saw it, saw his state, how he was. it was like this six years ago when sehun's father died. sehun lost the only person who would ever come to a true understanding of him, now he acts senselessly. 

he stumbles to the bathroom, opening up the medicine cabinet before he takes out a bottle of pills, throwing them in his mouth. he grabs the glass sitting on the counter and fills it with water, swallowing the pills and the bad taste in his mouth. then he looks in the mirror, the shattered one, and he sees his reflection. 

broken.

the house was quiet-- almost empty. the kids were asleep (well, almost all of them), resting cluelessly on their pillows as a storm made its way through baekhyun's mind. it was impossible to calm down. 

there was no one left to cry over dramas with late into the night, no one to talk about things chanyeol would never understand with, no one to talk about 'boy problems' with. luhan had only left a little while ago, a sad look on his face. baekhyun remembers it because it wasn't something that was easily forgettable. he had found a friend in luhan, someone who understood his struggles. almost like chanyeol, but in a different way. there was no kissing and hugging until things were alright, no wiping each others' tears, no telling each other 'i love you' to make up for things with luhan, it was just talking and getting things out the right way. 

most importantly, he pities sehun. he has mercy for him. he knows sehun, he sees past his hardened expressions, and sees that boy from high school that he had come to think of as a little brother, and even as one of his children into adulthood. it was impossible not to feel that way when all sehun secretly wanted was someone who would be there, who would love him, who would protect him like he needed it when he wasn't strong enough to put up a fight. he has sympathy for him, for his method of rejecting people because he feels weak, because he feels like he needs to hold stuff in so he won't be judged. never, not ever in this lifetime, will byun baekhyun ever understand oh sehun, but he definitely knows what he wants. he just can't figure out why he is resisting it when it's right there. all he wants is the best for sehun.

baekhyun sighs, leaning back onto his pillow as the baby snores away on his chest. chanhyun has been there, he just stays there. it's really the only thing grounding baekhyun right now, especially his strangled cries if he is hungry or needs a diaper change that pulls baekhyun out of his thoughts. after the surgery, baekhyun was quick to make himself recover. after four pregnancies, all of which involved a c-section in the end, baekhyun can't say it doesn't hurt, but it doesn't hurt as much as it did when he gave birth to yejun all those years ago. it's a painful but glorious thing, the cross on his stomach is. he doesn't want to sit in bed all day, so he has chanyeol to bring him downstairs when he wants it, and a walking stick to help him slowly trail around the house if chanyeol is busy. 

"you okay?" he hears his husband's voice ask, then the shutting of their bedroom door. 

baekhyun nods distractedly. "yeah, i'm fine. did soomin finally go to sleep?" 

chanyeol nods, running a veiny hand through his hair and sighing. his shirt fits tightly on his body, and normally baekhyun would be affected by it, but he was too distracted by his thoughts to comment or even acknowledge it. "finally. she kept asking if i would play barbies with her until she fell asleep, when we both knew that if we did, i would be asleep before she would." 

the smaller chuckles just because it's his family, just because it's his daughter's hilarious ways that were able to pull him a little further from the dark. "you must be really tired, yeol. i'm sorry." 

"you have nothing to be sorry about, my love. it's just part of life and...parenthood. it's crazy, baby, that i'm four years into this and i'm still not used to it." 

baekhyun hums, threading his fingers through chanhyun's dark hair. "it's not really something you easily get used to. i have even longer than you and yet i still can hardly withstand getting woken up at 6am everyday." 

chanyeol chuckles. "you know...i think about that sometimes. what it would be like if you never came after me." the giant gets in bed next to him, wary of his broken arm and of the sleeping baby in baekhyun's arms. 

"don't think about that, yeol," baekhyun replies. "that's in the past. what's more important is our future, our chaotic children, our home. what's more important is right now." 

the taller sighs. "i know, love. it's just...i'm so happy that i wake up with you every morning. i'm so happy that even though i have made countless mistakes, you still love me as much as i love you. i don't even care that i can barely touch you these days without being walked in on, that i can't make you feel good unless it's in the shower late at night, i just...i'm so thankful that i'm here, and not in that stupid, old apartment in seoul. because if i was, i don't think i could've lived that way any longer." he looks down at baekhyun with those big, shining eyes, and the elder can't do anything but obey his urge to reach up and touch the taller's face, wiping his sweet tears. 

"i'm glad you feel that way, because i don't think i could've either. i don't mind that we can barely make love without being caught, yeol, but could you imagine life any other way? could you imagine what it would be like to have no kids running around the house, waking you up extra early, or sneaking in on us? i couldn't. we're so lucky to have them," baekhyun murmurs. "we're so lucky to have each other." 

they sit like that for a while, baekhyun's head leaning against chanyeol's shoulder as they take time to appreciate each other and admire the way chanhyun is grabbing baekhyun's shirt in his tiny, pink fists as he sleeps. 

it's when chanyeol brings up the topic of sehun that baekhyun tenses, remembering how the guest bedrooms are now empty. 

"about sehun..." chanyeol begins, pulling baekhyun close. "he'll come to his senses soon. i know he will." 

"how can we so sure, yeol? what's happened has already happened. what's done is done. i'm so worried." 

"i know, love." 

baekhyun sighs. "it's just hard watching someone who has so much ahead of him grow up. it's not just the evasion. there's things he's not telling us. i can see it. i'm not guilty for once, because i know that it wasn't just what i said. i knows it's not. there's something more to it. it's causing him to drink, to push us all away, to hate luhan. i don't understand it. i just wish he would tell me things again. he just...i hate it, yeol, i _hate_ it," he cries into the taller's shoulder, just the thought of younger sehun that used to always hang out with him. that used to help him. that was the reason they are there today. what happened to him? what does baekhyun not know about? is this what happens when you take someone for granted?

"i know," chanyeol says. he pulls baekhyun close, careful about chanhyun and too much movement on baekhyun's stitches even though after four of the same surgeries, the pain just begins to blend in. "shh, love, don't cry about it. i promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that i will find out what's wrong. i promise...just please, stop crying."

baekhyun nods, wiping his tears, resting against chanyeol. the dark mood, however, is over the minute that chanhyun stirs and baekhyun is forced into reality. chanyeol tells him to stay there, leaving to go get the milk. 

when they finish feeding chanhyun, the small boy just falls back asleep, and baekhyun and chanyeol sit in silence, late into the night, just listening to each other's heartbeats. 


	11. Whatever it Takes

sehun lay on the sofa, staring at the ceiling above. which way was it spinning? left or right? or was it clockwise or counterclockwise? did a fan even have a direction? 

he didn't really know. all he did know was that dad's picture looked better in his hands than it did in any picture frame on the wall. it belonged in his grasp, it didn't deserve to have to stay on there.

sometimes he likes to sit here, head on the armrest, and imagine what life would've been like if the man were still here--sitting over there on the recliner, watching the news on the television and scoffing occasionally when they pulled their little celebrity news segment. he wonders what he could've done to stop the crash from ever happening. failed high school? but no, that would've been silly. he wonders if his dad died a happy man, a proud one that was so pleased to see his youngest son graduate from high school. well, he didn't exactly see it, but it's the thought that counts.

sehun remembers waiting for his parents to show up, trying not to appear to happy as he looked around for his mom and dad among the crowd of parents, grandparents, and other relatives he knew his classmates barely knew. all he could see was baekhyun, sitting in his seat with the biggest smile he could attempt on his face as he tried his best to cover his swollen stomach. he vividly remembers waving and returning the elder's smile. 

it was when the ceremony was about to start that he looked into the crowd and realized they still weren't there. he was worried, absolutely terrified, and he had all kinds of thoughts of what could've happened. maybe they were late. traffic? but there isn't much traffic here. maybe they broke down on the road? dad would've been able to quickly fix that. maybe mom slipped up when she was putting on lipstick and didn't want to come in like that? all the thoughts were racing through his mind, but nothing was as bad as when one of his teachers came up to him in his seat, telling him to come with her. she led him backstage, where he could see his uncle hugging his aunt, trying to get her to calm down. 

he remembers feeling his blood run cold, only being able to utter a quiet _"what is it?"_

the look in his aunt's eyes scared him. she couldn't even speak, could barely even look at the anxious teenager before her. she motioned to her husband to take over for her, walking away to quickly exit the door on the stage, leaving into the cold night. 

his uncle hugged him before he could even say anything and he noticed that the elder was trembling. _"uncle, what's wrong?"_

" _s-son,_ " the man was only able to mutter. " _we need to leave. come on, we're going to the hospital._ "

" _w-why_?"

" _because there's been an accident, sehun. your parents are at the hospital right now. they need their son there with them._ " 

sehun misunderstood. he thought his uncle was saying that his parents are there waiting at the hospital. they didn't clarify who the important person was whose accident gathered nearly every single one of their family members in the hospital. his aunt and uncle didn't speak during the car ride, only kept quiet, and sehun was left to wonder with his racing mind. 

his confusion, however, was cleared up when he saw everyone _except_ his parents looking at him with overwhelming sympathy. they all stared at him, his grandmother even got up to go tell him she's sorry, but his grandpa held her down when he saw the devastation in sehun's eyes. he was heartbroken. 

when he fully comprehended the fact that it was his parents that were in the hospital, _dying_ , he sat in the furthest corner of the waiting room. away from every family member who pitied him, who cried for him, who were hugging him when he wasn't even far enough into reality to appeciate it. sehun did not cry; not once did he shed a tear. all the tears were being let out inside. 

later into that night, after ignoring phone call after phone call from baekhyun, a nurse stepped into the waiting room with a grim look on her face. she acknowledged him as the son, but seeing as how he was separated from the rest of his kin, she refrained from approaching him. she informed them that sehun's father had died. she did not once explain how it happened, what exactly he died from, never once slipped up and gave away too much information, and soon left the waiting room with sorry look in her eyes. he had lost his father, but his mother was still alive. 

days passed, many unanswered calls plagued his phone, and sehun felt himself begin to feel less. it wasn't "feelings" as in the way the cold stung his skin when he touched the window, not in the way that girl at the vending machine fluttered her lashes at him and he wasn't really sure what to think, but in the way things appeared to him. things began to hurt less. the tears stopped building when he imagined his life without dad. his mind stopped spinning when he realized there'll be no more fixing up cars together, no more hiding when his mother was on a cleaning spree together, no more being dad and son. it was just sehun. yeah, mom too, but his mother was never capable of truly understanding him like his dad did. it was just him. and that was that. 

'that was that' didn't go well. sehun began to have horrible thoughts, began to smile less, separated himself from his friends. he even stopped searching for chanyeol. he slept less. he ate less. he took over the garage and never stopped working. that was when his mother, still sore and heartbroken but nearly healed, decided it was time to go to a doctor. his doctor acted normal, fine, just asking a bunch of questions about random symptoms. if he was _sad_. was there any point in denying it? 

not when there was a thousand pamphlets on the wall about depression, and to his surprise, his mother was reading them.

sehun was diagnosed with clinical depression. suddenly, everything made sense. the sleepless nights, the decreased appetite, the horrible thoughts, the anxiety, the fear, the sadness, the anger--the endless list of the things that just kept going. he was depressed. he was given antidepressants, told to take his medicine everyday until the feelings began to go away, and told, specifically, _not_ to drink alcohol. 

luhan was an escape. he was a distraction to the real world. he was the pretty soccer player sehun met at the airport a few months ago. soon, sehun found himself easing off of antidepressants. even though luhan was on tv, he was a healing thought for sehun. sehun was becoming happier, began to look at luhan on tv and think about how pretty he was. it was like an infatuation that sehun would never take too far, one he would always have control over. 

years passed, years spent loving a person who probably forgot about him. then chanyeol came home. sehun watched as things got even better. baekhyun was happy, so was yejun, thus sehun was as well. everything was fixing itself. turns out, life wasn't an impossible puzzle, and sehun figured that out at twenty years old, watching everything that happened with his friends' lives that affected his own. he had found the cheat book to life--and their names were luhan and byun- no, park yejun. 

then came the day that chanyeol left again. sehun could hear the sadness in baekhyun's voice--the heartbreak was so authentic. he tried his best, was encouraging baekhyun to be strong, but the response he got was not expected nor positive. but baekhyun was right, there was no denying it. who was he to tell baekhyun to be strong when he was just a stupid little kid who was "in love" with a soccer player that never even got his name? it was hard after that, to look at reality and see that there was no luhan in it. it was easier to let it go, so he let go.

with no distraction, with baekhyun and chanyeol getting together again and starting a family after they made up, sehun found it easier to stay away from things he would become emotionally attached to. it was so much easier, wasn't it? to not get involved in the first place? 

whether he was willing to face it or not, the real reason sehun couldn't get hurt again was because he didn't want to feel what he felt when dad died. it was terrible to do that, very costly to both himself and the people who loved him, but it was better than feeling nothing, having no smile to offer, and taking tablet after tablet in the morning with his breakfast. 

sehun's depression was triggered again a few months ago. he relapsed, fell back into this horrible mood he couldn't seem to get out of. because summer of this year marked the sixth anniversary of dad's death. it marked years since sehun felt alone in a dark world, and in this dark world he was just a bird with a broken wing. he was hindered by this wing, he could not fly. it was crazy, because sehun was six when dad first let him try to fix something. he was six when the world that was his passion formed.

that's why he stayed away from the parks, why he would stay in the garage until he just go _so_ tired and slept there on dad's office chair. that's why he stays up a night, sleeps during most of the day. that's why he drinks, even though his doctor told him _not_ _to_. that's why he keeps to himself. that's why he separates himself from luhan. 

if he got too involved, too attached, how would he ever begin to detach himself? how would he relapse without anyone knowing? not even his mother knew he relapsed. he was embarrassed, ashamed, filled with uneasiness, because it's not easy to suddenly let go of your pride, of your composed self, and tell them about the struggle you've faced for years. 

sehun's surprised baekhyun hasn't uncovered his antidepressants since he sometimes just enters the other's home with no permission for no apparent reason. he is terrified of when it happens, though. whenever or however it will. 

he's terrified of it all. scared. sometimes he wonders if he should see a therapist to talk about things. to get them out. would that help?

he doesn't know. all he does know is that he's just like the fan; running in countless circles, never really stopping. just like the fan, sehun has no definite direction. 

luhan's fingers tapped nervously on his kneecaps as he looked out the window, watching the sun descend upon the horizon for what would probably be his last time in korea. he can't help the building nervousness in him. he's leaving the place he lived for years now, and it felt almost as bad as when he left china for this very opportunity. 

but really, he had nothing to be worried about. because the word 'prospect' means 'possibility', and even though it was his dream since forever to travel the world through soccer teams, through the sport that started it all for him, it wasn't his dream to leave everything else behind. 

exactly the reason why he hadn't signed the contract.

"you had a whole press conference set up for this entire occasion, luhan, what changed?" asks joonseok from in front of him, the man's jaw clenched in displeasure. "i mean, this is the chance of a lifetime, you had people betting on you, and you refused the opportunity? what the hell?" 

luhan twitches. "i can make decisions for myself."

"apparently you can't. you didn't sign with the current agency again because you saw this as an opportunity open for grabs. you were expected to finish the season before you transferred, this whole thing has been planned out, why are you changing your mind? i thought this was your dream!" 

"it was..." luhan murmurs. "but i've changed my mind. i need some time away." 

"away from what?" joonseok exclaims. 

"away from this lifestyle. i need to go back home," luhan replies with certainty, finality evident in his voice. 

joonseok sighs. "and you're making this kind of decision last minute? do you know how angry they're going to be? this was a long-term decision that you, if you truly wanted to make this type of abrupt choice, should've notified the officials of first." 

"i didn't know this would happen, okay?" luhan asks as he turns away from the window. "i thought we would enjoy our last days in korea before we went back to board the jet. but i never expected to...to let myself find a place in a family i have no business being in." 

the manager scoffs. "those were regular people from a regular town that were strangely welcoming, alright? nothing too important to get caught up on."

"nothing too important? those people are amazing people, no matter what you think of them. they're different than we are. they live normal lives. they have something you and i don't have, joonseok, and that's each other. chanyeol and baekhyun--they're lives are chaotic and somewhat nightmarish and yet, they manage to hold everything together and love each other and have things that you and i will never have if we don't try to get out there for once," luhan says, balling his fists. 

"did you forget that i have no family to go home to?" joonseok inquires. "i have no parents, no girlfriend, i basically have no life. my job is my everything, because unlike you, i don't have talent or money or literally anything that you have. it's easy for you to say that when you have something to look for. i'm fine where i am."

luhan sighs, shoulders dropping. "right, but i'm not. i found my talent in china. i need to go back home and find myself right where i left it, do you understand me now? i have a world outside of soccer and i need to return to that. i will get back when i'm ready, but i can't promise you that it will be in the same thing."

the manager sits silently for a while, annoyingly cracking his knuckles. luhan gets a sense of the differences in perspective. he hasn't yet found his passion, even though he thought it would be in soccer. he always thought it would be. it probably is, actually, but not in this position. luhan has somewhere else to be in the world, doing something to find himself, and in the meantime, he hopes that sehun, the mechanic who changed his life for both bad and good, would find himself too along the way. 

finally, after a few minutes of mostly comfortable silence, joonseok speaks up. "i don't think i'll ever understand you, luhan, but i know what you're saying. i'm not your manager anymore, but i'm still flying to china with you because it's important that i say goodbye." luhan nods in understanding, deciding that that's the best way end that conversation. but he didn't expect joonseok to suddenly change the subject. "that mechanic really affected you, didn't he?" 

"what...?"

"that guy. sehun," joonseok answers. "he really got at you, didn't he? always got under your skin. it's a shame you're leaving to china, really. ah, kids in love."

luhan blanches. his blood runs cold, and if it were any other day, he would've snapped at the man, saying, "i'm not exactly young", at which the other would reply, "you look like you could be". but it wasn't just any other day, but the day he leaves for china to find himself. his heart pounds in his ears, the question being _was it that obvious?_

"you okay?" joonseok asks.

luhan nods absently. "yeah, i'm fine."

and he was silent for the rest of the way. 

chanyeol hung the last of the ornaments on the tree, stepping back and pulling the smaller close to his side. 

"daddy, it looks so good!" soojin exclaims, her pretty eyes mesmerized by the light on the tree. she jumps up and down, bothering her slightly older sister, who gives her a weird stare. 

chanyeol guffaws deeply, non-broken hand rubbing baekhyun's arm in a soothing manner. "thank you, but it wasn't all me. i have you to thank, my princess, for the encouragement." 

soojin smiles, settling down by donghyun and he floor. she picks up of his wooden toy trucks and pretends to drive it across the toddler's leg, making the boy squeal and giggle and reach out with his chubby hands. soomin scoots up next to them, doing the same thing. there was once a time, around when donghyun was maybe a year old, that he couldn't seem to tell the twins apart (who would be able to when they looked exactly the same) and would look back and forth between them, eyes wide and mouth gaping. he looked taken aback, aghast, by his sister's uncanny resemblance. 

"christmas is coming, aren't you happy, junnie?" baekhyun glances down to his side, patting the head of the five-year-old who stands silently, watching his siblings. 

the young boy nods, leaning his head against his papa's thigh. "i am." 

"you don't seem very excited. are you sure?"

yejun nods again. "i can't wait for christmas, but i'm just happy watching them for now," he says quietly.

baekhyun beams. they were initally very nervous about having more kids after they found out baekhyun was pregnant the second time, let alone with twins. they feared that yejun would somehow remember that point in his life where he didn't have a father, where it was just papa and him, and kyungsoo and sehun and taeyong. but when the young boy, just nearing three years old, saw his sisters for the first time, his eyes lit up and they held so much love for the twins. he took care of them, even though sometimes he was rough with them, and he loved him like a real brother should, and it was the same with the rest. chanyeol pats his arm, pulling him close. 

"hey, do you guys want to open an early christmas present?" baekhyun asks, catching the attention of all of their children. 

chanyeol laughs. "love, i think we spoiled them enough with grandma's christmas cookies today, don't you think? besides, having all your presents in christmas day always adds to the excitement." 

"no," baekhyun scoffs. "my mother always used to do this with me and my brother. she would gives us the littlest things before anything else," he says, frowning up at the giant. "i want to pass something down to my children that we all can enjoy. especially at a time like this." 

chanyeol, catching his drift, only nods back. one might think, for whatever reason, that since baekhyun is smaller, chanyeol has the power over the family and he makes all the big, serious decisions, but they couldn't be more wrong. chanyeol may be the one to dominate him in bed (when they can actually have sex), but that doesn't mean that baekhyun doesn't control him. all baekhyun has to do is burst out in tears and chanyeol would give his everything to do what the smaller wants. 

"fine," he relents. "they can have one early christmas present, but that's all. if christmas was everyday, we wouldn't appreciate it enough." 

baekhyun smiles, turning and directing each of his children to their individual early presents that sit wrapped and ready under the tree. yejun gets a sketchbook, one he looks elated about because he can now draw more of the little buildings he likes to doodle on his papers. baekhyun knows he'll be even happier when he sees what he'll get christmas day, but the hug the boy gives him over such a trivial thing warms his heart like he very much needed. 

soojin and soomin both get barbies, though different ones if you look close enough, because both the parents know that the little girls had an eye for small details, and hated having the exact same things. 

donghyun looks confused as he opens his present. it's two-inch thick package of stickers designed to look like cars and trains, ones that'll probably end up all over the house and peppered across chanyeol's face when he wakes up tomorrow. 

chanhyun is not aware of it yet, but he gets a soft toy. it's a little elephant, soft to the touch since they're already aware that his skin will be sensitive. it has his name sewn into the back and the minute they reach down to the little boy in the bassinet to lay his plushie there, he unconsciously snuggles up to it. 

baekhyun gives chanyeol a glass figurine of a guitar. it has the perfect details, accentuated strings, silver-painted tuning machines on the headstock, and even a tiny pick on the end that's been glued on. the giant gives baekhyun a thankful smile and a delighted peck on the lips, thanking him.

baekhyun does not expect it, but chanyeol also gives him an early christmas present, a present that makes him nervous for what his real christmas present will be. he hands him a necklace. it doesn't even have a box, it just sits on the tip on his finger as he hands it to baekhyun. the elder male's mouth drops open in surprise, his eyes wetting at the little glare of the charm in the lights of the tree. the silver charm has two little feet, hanging from the hoops that hold it to the chain. little, tiny baby feet dangling from a silver charm of the moon, made just for him. 

"for you," chanyeol says, his deep voice thick with emotion. "for giving me my children." 

baekhyun grins and blinks with wet eyes, embracing his husband whilst being conscious of his injured arm. "thank you," he whispers. "this means so, so much to me."

"of course, my love." 

they watch their children bond over presents, giggling and laughing to their heart's desire. for once in the past few days, they feel like they can all be genuinely happy again. they can watch their children become overjoyed in tandem. it's not only a thing for the eyes, but their hearts and their souls too. 

those kids, their beautiful children, will always be happy--that, they will make sure of. 

no matter what, even though they are starting to watch some people's smiles fade and others brighten, seeing some becoming more distanced and others becoming closer, their kids will always be happy. whatever it takes. 


	12. Miracles in December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: mentions of suicidal thoughts | do NOT read if you are uncomfortable

sehun is staring at the rug, the endless sea of colors all splayed out on one big, giant piece of fabric on the floor, swirling his drink in his glass but taking short and controlled sips to somehow ground himself around the substance, when he feels another presence beside him on the couch. 

"hey, man," jongin says, leaning over and punching him on the shoulder. "why're you just sitting here? we're all in the dining room. come on, join us. i don't want you sitting here alone." the elder looks at him with those eyes that mask their concern, their concern for him. 

sehun shoots him one glance before he looks back down to the floor. "nah, i'm okay. go be with them." 

"are you really okay? you haven't once spoken to me since, well, the day at the bar. i'm worried about you, dude. you may usually be pretty distant, but it's not like you to just avoid all of us," replies jongin.

the younger nods. "i'm fine, really. just go on and be with soo. it's christmas."

"christmas _eve_ ," jongin corrects. "which reminds me, i'm supposed to inform you that tonight is a very special night, thus you are not allowed to leave, okay? no excuses. soo and i want you to be here. tomorrow's the big stuff, 'cause, you know, it's just christmas eve right now, but it's still important."

sehun just shrugs. 

jongin scoffs. "come on, man. you're such a party-pooper." sehun is most surprised that jongin has used his kid language around sehun, who was used to being called "dickhead" if he did not agree to anything and everything. the entire thing almost made him laugh.

"you do realize you sound like a dad, right? never thought i'd hear that from you of all people." 

the elder nods. "i've been noticing it a lot these days. it's crazy how quickly things can change between the high school and adulthood period, don't you think? time has flown by, i miss you guys and i miss being free, but i can't say that i'm not happy that soo has gifted me with the greatest thing anyone could ever give me: my children."

sehun's mind spins for a moment, and he turns to look at jongin inquisitively, but before he can, kyungsoo is already calling for jongin from the kitchen. the taller pats him shoulder and smiles brightly before he hops up to assist kyungsoo with whatever in the world the elder might need. 

sehun feels guilty. he caught on to jongin's fairly obvious allusion of why tonight would special. but he couldn't say he was particularly happy for his friends, and that made him feel guilty. once again, he was back to the thoughts that the world, his friends, his family, his _everything_ , was moving on without him. he's 24, a mechanic, distant, sad, and downright stupid. but in the past few weeks, only one thing has changed: he's no longer a virgin. 

it's sad, isn't it? what took place truly wasn't how he imagined losing it, not that he spent a long time awaiting the day it would (sure, and the parks aren't horny for each other 24/7). he just thought that maybe it would take place in a more...you know, romantic setting. maybe on his wedding night, where things are a thousand times more special because you've been waiting for so long, or on his anniversary, with the bed covered in rose petals and fruit-scented lube. perhaps strawberry, maybe even watermelon!

in other words, losing his virginity wasn't what he had quite expected it to be, per se. it was rough and he found himself half-aware that what he was doing was not exactly sweet to his partner. with that partner being _luhan_. some people enjoyed rough sex, but sehun wasn't really one of those people. he guesses that he was just so filled with anger and lust that needed to be let out that night, that he completely disobeyed the rational part of his mind and went for it. maybe that's why he was sad more. not because of losing his virginity, but because of how alcohol affects him. it weakens his antidepressants, said the doctor, and he should not consume it when he wasn't in the right place. but let's be honest, sehun was no devout rule-follower. 

he followed his own rules. he played games. all because those things were a disguise to the truth that there was legitimately something wrong with sehun that needed to be tended to as soon as possible. although, with him being oh sehun, it's not like he would ever care about that. because apparently, all he cares about is _himself_. 

there's nothing more lighthearted than watching smiles bloom on childrens' faces. their eyes bunch up, their cheeks are chubby with happiness, and there's sometimes little dimples to see and coo at. christmas is one of those days that everyone loves. i mean, come on, why would you not like a day where you not only get to receive, but also give? it's everything that can be categorized as wonderful. everyone loves it. so, smiles and christmas celebrations go hand in hand, correct? sehun thinks so. 

but one present that doesn't come in a box is the gift of life. sehun expects it when kyungsoo and jongin reveal that their adventures on jeju island worked out like they had hoped they would. sehun knew the couple had always wished for another child. sometimes kyungsoo bitterly talks about how lucky baekhyun is to have his children, to have such a large family, after everything that took place in their younger years, while kyungsoo could only have one even (which is sort of ironic considering how kyungsoo used to say he always wanted one and only one) when he took mostly all the proper steps to a calm and peaceful life. it always started a fight between the two that chanyeol and jongin were always forced to alleviate. in the end, they still stayed best friends, but kyungsoo was still crossing his fingers and hoping for more. 

so, true to their hopes and prayers, jongin and kyungsoo were gifted a child. the doctor confirmed it and there was literally nothing they couldn't be happy about. after all, it was kyungsoo's dream to have a family of his own that he and his husband could successfully raise to be amazing human beings, and seeing as how this holiday was granting wishes, kyungsoo might just receive what he's always dreamt of. 

by the time that everyone is done giving and opening gifts, the floor is covered in wrapping paper and things thrown aside when they weren't as good as the other presents (it's a child's logic, what can you say?). the house smells of christmas cookies that kyungsoo definitely made because they smell delicious, with music bouncing off the walls as chanyeol grabs his guitar and every single child (except chanhyun) in the room darts to his side, wanting to hear what music the giant musical man has to play. kyungsoo was busy keeping jongin from tackling baekhyun because the other had called him an idiot, which he obviously took offense to. but it didn't look like baekhyun cared, as it was a recurring argument for the two. 

the young mechanic sighs, excusing himself outside for a breath of fresh air. there was nothing about the atmosphere that felt suffocating, sehun just needed some time to think. 

after pulling on his jacket, he steps outside and settles on the porch swing. the coldness of the air stings his fingertips, his nose, and the tips of his ears. he can see his breath in the dark night, watching the vapor float away as if it never existed at all. 

his thoughts blend into one big wave of wonder. there was too much to think about. think of it like this, his thoughts were like a pot on the stove that was overloaded with popcorn kernels and the pressure gets so high that eventually it just has to explode. pressure. huh, isn't that a funny word? so many different meanings and uses in one tiny word that means nothing in the end. because once the pressure is released, just like with a basketball, his mind becomes flat again, and that's no fun. 

his feet tap against the floorboards of the porch, he gnaws the inside of his cheek, not really sure what to do. but then the door opens and the last person he expected to come out emerged from the doorway. 

chanyeol looked like any other guy in the same black hoodie he always wears. for some reason, he really likes to wear black hoodies, and sehun's not judging him, but he wonders if the man owns a ton of them or just one. 

"hyung," sehun greets. "thought you were busy inside." 

chanyeol chuckles. "yeah, well, after you've had five children, even the cold becomes an escape. oh, and drop the 'hyung', you haven't called me that in years, don't start now." 

the younger scoffs a laugh, elbowing chanyeol. "i'll call you what i want, _hyung_." 

"then i will as well, you little shit." 

"hey! not even 'dongsaeng'?!" 

chanyeol laughs. "nope. the longer you address me as 'hyung', the longer you will be known as 'little shit'. serves you right, sehun. calling me by my surname when you sure as hell know only baek can do that." 

sehun suddenly remembers their argument from a few weeks ago. it's fresh in his mind; how bratty he acted towards chanyeol when his friend was just trying to help him out. sehun's sure that he's heard kyungsoo refer to chanyeol as "park" before, but chanyeol usually lets it pass because kyungsoo can be pretty fucking scary. however, there's one person chanyeol has always let call him by his surname and that only, and that was baekhyun, back in high school and even now, because who knows? he could be referring to himself.

"ah, come on, man. let that go already." 

"i let it go a long time ago. one thing i've learned from my past mistakes is that you have to learn how to forgive people, or else you won't have anybody to be with. forgiving is just part of life. besides, i was just joking," chanyeol says, burying his hands in the pockets of his hoodie now that they have become too cooled down. 

sehun hums, nodding his head. he can feel chanyeol watching him out of the corner of his eye, but he chooses not to say anything. 

"i should apologize too, honestly. for calling you a kid. i'm sorry, that was wrong of me. i know you're a grown man, and i'm sorry for making it seem like i don't think you are. i know you can take care of yourself." 

"you do?" sehun inquires. "but what about the countless times your husband has freaked out over a small accident that occurred because i work hard? i know you do, but does baek?" 

chanyeol nods. "he does. he doesn't like to admit, but he does. he loves you like his little brother whom he would give up his life for, you have to understand that." 

sehun keeps quiet, chewing on the inside of his cheek. he can feel chanyeol wanting him to say something, but what else was there to say? nothing. sehun did not get the answer he wanted, and instead got the same answer as always. 

chanyeol kept looking at him, his gaze unwavering. sehun knew that when chanyeol was truly dedicated to something, he was headstrong, he would always get what he wanted.

"you know, i never really got a chance to thank you." 

sehun turns to the elder with furrowed brows. what did he mean? "for what?" 

chanyeol sighs and leans back against the swing. "for everything." 

the younger scoffs. "you have nothing to thank me for." 

"you're wrong," chanyeol objects. "if i remember correctly, it was you who pulled strings so that i would be able to be with the love of my life, with my child, and my other family. oh, and yes, i know that you did it for baekhyun, but you got me back home and you gave me a chance when you really should not have. you've got to give yourself some credit, man."

"yeah, but i don't need some whole thanking ceremony just for doing you a favor. but you're welcome, by the way," sehun replies monotonously. 

chanyeol shakes his head with a displeased scoff from beside him. "i hate when you do this, you know that? you pretend like it never happened. you didn't just do me any favor, man, you brought my family back together. if not for you, if not for that whole damn scandal, i would not be here right now with my family. i owe everything to you." 

"i hate it when you do this as well. what about soo? he put in as much work as i did, you should be thanking him, not me."

"no, i am going to thank you, because you don't give yourself enough credit. i don't understand, sehun. help me understand. why did you start pretending nothing ever happened?"

sehun regrets ever carrying on this conversation, because all in all, he has no idea why he just stopped. he guesses that after the parks reunited and once again mended their relationship, sehun saw that his relevance in the situation had expired. while chanyeol and baekhyun were busy working things out and caring for their son, and finding out about the twins soon after, with jongin and kyungsoo both having lives and a marriage of their own, with nowhere else to go, sehun guessed that he just expelled himself, but apparently the two other parties did not think that way.

"oh, god, don't do this again," the elder groans. "you may be an adult, but that doesn't mean you grow up and lose all your playfulness. your bratiness is part of your charm, if you don't mind me saying. you're easy to talk to even if you do visibly judge me, and if it truly bothered me, you wouldn't ever have been my best friend. i mean, look at me, sehun, i fell off the fucking roof while putting up christmas lights, i put the love of my life into early labor, and i nearly missed my son's birth because of it. you're not a kid anymore, but that doesn't mean you can't have fun." 

sehun exhales and shakes his head. he knew the elder wouldn't understand. "it's not that." 

chanyeol lets out an exasperated sound. "then, what is it? i just wish you would tell me." 

"just that...i like to think of when it was just me, you, baek, soo, and jongin. you remember those days? when it was just us? back in high school when there were no kids--" 

"--the part about kids was inevitable." 

sehun rolls his eyes. " _anyway_ , i just miss those days. i miss being your best friend and being dumb with you. i miss having baek acting like a diva. i miss interrupting soo and jongin when they were trying to make out. god, i even miss the days when yejun was just little and i saw how happy you were to be there for him. but things aren't that way anymore, and you guys all have families and responsibilities and things i'll never understand, and i'm just...me. i don't know, just forget it." 

chanyeol shakes his head from beside him, looking worn out and exasperated, and sehun can only assume that he only adds on to the daily stress the taller experiences. "no, i'm not just going to forget about it. i see where you're coming from. i miss those days too, when we used to hang out and my life wasn't so complicated. but as much as i wish i could go back to those days, i have to acknowledge that this is my life now. _our_ life now. i can't change it and i don't think, if i ever had the chance, i would. i love my life. don't you love yours?" 

"i do," sehun says. "i'm more than fortunate to be where i am. but...there's things about my past that i desire nothing more than to go back and have again. there's mistakes i wish i could fix. there's people i want to see again." he closes his eyes as he feels them begin to sting. he hates that feeling, has been long sick of it. he wants it to stop. 

"sehun, are you okay?"

he can't answer because his shoulders start trembling. his hands fold around themselves, warming themselves up, but how hard they grip each other can't seem to knock him back to reality. 

"you miss your dad, don't you?" chanyeol dares to ask.

sehun feels hot streaks of liquid down his face, and he just lets it go. leaning his head against the other's broad shoulder, he lets out a cry he never thought he'd hear from himself. 

chanyeol wraps his arm around his best friend, letting the younger's head rest on his shoulder as he lets it all out. he's urged to mutter "it's okay, you're alright", but he feels like words were too much for the moment when he felt his sleeve becoming wet. the younger let his tears go for the first time in years, and chanyeol did not feel like interrupting a revolutionary moment. 

everything is silent other than the distant sound of the kids inside the house and sehun's cries. the snow falls lightly, different patterns on each and every snowflake making its way down from the dark sky. chanyeol only lets him cry, he only lets him get out what needs to be let go and left in the past. 

sehun's regret, a regret chanyeol knows the reason behind, reminds him of his own regrets. he feels remorseful about the moment he told baekhyun that he didn't love him when in fact, it was quite obvious that he did. his own worries led him to saying only the worst, believing the worst, and doing beyond the word worse. he was convinced that baekhyun felt like he was just a good time, like a break from a long period of self-control, when he was really far more than that. just like sehun, chanyeol's regrets will never disappear. the past is the past, but the future is in his hands. the choices he makes will decide the future for him. 

he's caught in his thoughts when sehun suddenly jerks away from him. 

"i'm sorry," sehun sniffles, looking away. "i shouldn't be ruining your christmas with my stupid emotions." 

"no, no, you're not ruining anything. your emotions are not stupid. i care about them as much as i care about you, okay? i want you to tell me how you're feeling. maybe, after that, we can be as close as we used to be, alright? please, tell me what's wrong," chanyeol asks, setting a hand on sehun's shoulder. 

sehun shakes his head in denial. "nothing's wrong. i'm just being dramatic." 

no, chanyeol tells himself. he's not being dramatic. he's letting all the stuff he has contained to consume him, and the results are not pretty. 

"look at me," chanyeol asserts. "look me in the eyes and tell me something is not wrong." 

sehun looks at him, eyes red and swollen, but he can't seem to say anything because he can tell that chanyeol already knows. chanyeol never stopped being his best friend, he's always known when something is wrong, he just doesn't always know how to fix it. 

"see?" the elder asks. "you can't do it. i know you can't. because you're holding all this stuff in and trust me, when you hold it in, it hurts worse than it does to let it out. if you can't tell me how you're feeling, how am i supposed to be a good best friend? whether you like to hear it or not, i appreciate you, sehun. not like a son, not like a little brother, like the best friend who chased after me when i made a mistake. he may not have been completely successful, but damn it, he _tried,_ and i'm not going to let you sit here and suffer, because you didn't let me do that, okay? you may not want to tell me everything, but you can at least try, can't you? you can trust me, i'm always here for you. no matter how old i get, you will always matter to me." 

sehun nods, wiping his tears silently. he feels more comfortable diverting his eyes and staring at the snow than looking into his best friend's caring and supportive eyes. this is it; he's going to let the one secret he's been capable of keeping for a little over six years out. he's going to release his deepest, darkest thoughts and moments. he can only hope that chanyeol will sit back and listen and that his feedback will be positive. 

and so, sehun told him. he told him about every memory he had while time passed so slowly he swore he could count the seconds with his fingers in that hospital. chanyeol never interrupted him, he listened, even as it got colder and the snow fell faster. chanyeol never made fun of him, not once. chanyeol loved him. he guesses his best friend's dad persona could be a good thing after all, because when sehun started crying again at the thought of his depression that lasted years upon years and never seemed to go away, he wrapped his arms around the younger and let him explain it in broken sobs. 

by the time he is finished, the ground is covered in a white blanket of fresh snow, easily a few inches thick. sehun's eyes hurt from crying, and his nose is running uncontrollably. chanyeol lets his snot get on his hoodie, unconcerned about the sweatshirt and more caring about what he's been told. he's a true caring person, because that was a hell of a lot of snot. 

"it's okay," chanyeol says finally after sehun's rant about his problems. "i won't think of you any differently just because of how you feel. i know that your dad's passing must have affected you greatly. i have no clue what you're going through, nor what you have gone through, but all i can say is that you are not alone. you are never alone. in spite of what you think, we are all here for you. every single one of us; me, baek, soo, jongin, even the kids, because they're always going to love their godfather for being so good to them. thank you for telling how you feel, sehun." 

sehun realizes when he says that, that chanyeol was right. after letting things out, sehun felt better. sehun felt like there was no longer a heavy, burdensome boulder balancing on his shoulders and he could finally breathe. he was no longer keeping a secret he fought doggedly to hide. and yes, while realizing that, he also questioned why he ever decided to keep it a secret. wouldn't things have been so much better if he'd let the cat out of the bag when he first found out? well, he can't change that now. 

"i'm guessing your depression has some involvement in the situation with luhan, right? i don't know much about it, but i do know that it causes you to sometimes make impulsive decisions. i know that you probably had no idea what you were doing, or how to handle it, and it was probably because of what you were going through. but we can't really blame it on your depression completely, though we're not going to get into that. right now is just about you," chanyeol says, casting sehun a glance from beside him to see that the younger was staring at his lap. 

"i don't know what to do," sehun mumbles, the moisture of his breath mixing with the chill in the air to create a cloud of fog. 

"what don't you know what to do about?" 

"everything, but mainly my depression. my medication worked for a long time, but that was years before, when i didn't..." sehun trails off, afraid to finish his sentence. 

chanyeol clears his throat. "when you didn't what?" 

"...when i didn't drink." in all honesty, sehun knew exactly what he was doing when he drank while on his medication. he knew exactly what it would do to him. 

the elder's jaw clenches upon realization. "you- sehun, you drank while on antidepressants? do you realize how risky that is? that is your life on the line. did you realize that it can make your depression worse? did you? that it can worsen your symptoms, thus making everything you do dangerous? did you realize how reckless you were being?" 

"yes!" sehun exclaims. "yes, i knew what i was doing! and you have no fucking clue how much i regret doing it, because all those accidents, those mishaps, they're all because of it, okay?! all of them!" 

chanyeol has to stop himself from lashing out at the younger, because he would never forgive himself if he did. part of being a best friend is being understanding, and if he were to judge sehun, although he has no idea why sehun would put himself at risk like that, he wouldn't be what he is supposed to be. 

"gosh," chanyeol mutters. "i'm trying to come up with an idea as to why you would do that. would you like to fill me in? because i _know_ this took place long before luhan got here." 

"i knew it was stupid when i did it. i knew it was dangerous. it's the same thing i've been told every time i go to the doctor. _keep taking those pills, son. they might just work_ ," he imitates bitterly. "but when the anniversary of dad's death took place this year, the only thing i could think of was how much i missed him. it made me think of how far i've gotten, all without him when i wanted it to be _with_ him. luhan was just icing on the cake. i felt like drinking--i don't know why, really. but it got out of hand and i found myself doing it too much, and it was too hard to let go of. i hated myself for it--for knowing what it does to me--but i can't take it back now." 

the air is silent for a few moments, chanyeol taking a little while to take it all in. how did he miss this? the resistance, the sadness, the drinking. how did he miss what was wrong with his best friend after knowing him for so many years? after living in the same apartment with him? chanyeol regrets not seeing it sooner. 

finally, after those beats of nothingness, chanyeol speaks up. "i'm sorry." 

sehun's gaze shoots to him at rocket speed. "sorry for what?" 

"i'm sorry for not noticing earlier. i feel so awful. as your best friend, it's my job to check in on you. it's my job to care for you. how could i have been so ignorant as to have not seen that you were suffering? i'm so sorry that i have treated you this way, sehun," he says sincerely. sehun can see the genuine regret in his eyes. 

"you don't have to be sorry for anything. you have a family to care for; children and a husband, and your parents and sister, and i'm not bothered by it. i knew that you had more important things--" 

"all the trivial things i do everyday that make me busy are not more important than your existence to me. sure, i love to focus on my family most of the time, but sometimes i need to look around and see what i'm missing. you are important. now tell me, sehun, have you ever thought about taking your own life?" 

the younger chokes, his eyes blinking rapidly, at the mere mention of the one thing he didn't want to be mentioned tonight. chanyeol looks at him, expectant with obvious remorse and pity. "why is that important? i mean, i'm still--" 

"answer the question. truthfully." 

sehun chews on his lip, his gaze dropping to his feet. how would he answer that question? how could he just say answer it as if it wasn't a matter that revolved around the thoughts that went through his brain when he laid in bed late at night and contemplated everything. it had been a long time ago, back when his dad had first passed, but that didn't mean it wasn't still there. 

very quietly, almost silently, he answers. " _yes_." 

chanyeol inhales sharply, tensing beside him so stiffly that sehun can see how affected he was from his peripheral vision. "do you see why i care so much? do you? because if you had done that, who would've been my best friend? who would given me back the best gift i could ever ask for? you think so little of yourself, but you don't see how big and crucial you are in the eyes of others. can you imagine what it would be like if you told baek this? i want you to imagine how this would've affected him."

sehun can only imagine how terrible it would be. baekhyun would have a breakdown. he would cry and sob for hours, right here on this porch swing. then, after he had enough of crying out here, he would storm off to the couple's room and possibly never talk to sehun again. 

"i only thought about it once," sehun replies shakily. 

"once doesn't change anything. i am not judging you, sehun. i will never think any less of you because you are, and will always be, my best friend. but you seriously underestimate your value. if there was no you, i would still be in seoul, dumb as fuck, dying alone because you didn't knock some sense into me, into _us_. it's because of _you_ that i have everything i could ever ask for. it's because of you that i have a family, but i think you forget that you are part of that family. i hold you dearly to my heart, despite what you think. i _love_ you, sehun. not like baekhyun, not like my children, i love you like you are, as my best friend. nothing you do or say will ever, and i'm promising you fucking _ever_ , change that." 

sehun can't hold it back when he says, "i love you too. i'm so sorry." 

chanyeol turns with his whole body, a serious look in his eyes. "you should never be sorry either. never. what happened was uncontrollable. the only thing i wish would've taken place is that you'd told me. i wish i could've helped sooner. gosh, if i'd known you'd forgotten just how amazing and important you are to me, i would've been there in an instant with snacks and a powerpoint at least 70 slides long." 

the words elicit a laugh out of sehun and soon his laughter turns in _their_ laughter. there's nothing really funny about it, but chanyeol is always able to make things better at the worst times. chanyeol is able to make everything better. 

later, however, their laughter fizzles out and they're left to bask in the silence between them. it is more comfortable than it was earlier, and sehun feels as if a weight was lifted from his shoulders just from talking about his problems. he feels like a kid again as he's leaning against the taller of the two. 

"hey," chanyeol says, breaking the silence. "i'm so glad you told me what was wrong. we have been so worried about you, really. it is heartbreaking to know that you were struggling with no one to talk to, but in spite of the sadness i feel for you right now, i want to help. would you allow me to make a suggestion?" 

sehun nods, still leaning on chanyeol. 

"would you be interested in seeing someone about this? it doesn't even have to be one person; i know there's therapy groups for these kinds of things, with people i know will be able to understand them more than me," he answers, swinging his legs like some kind of overgrown little kid, as he always is even in the worst situations. 

sehun contemplates the suggestion for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of talking about his problems with other people he doesn't know actually listening, but in the end, he concludes that help is better than trying to fix something as critical as depression yourself. 

"sure, i guess. but would you come with me? i don't want to go alone." 

chanyeol chuckles beside him and sehun thinks that chanyeol's about to say "you're such a kid", but instead he just says, "of course i will." 

"oh, and, chanyeol?" 

"yes?" 

"can we not tell baek about this?" 

chanyeol's eyebrows furrow. "sehun, baekhyun is concerned about you as well. i promised him i would find out what's going on because we both love you. why would we not tell him?"

sehun sighs. "we can tell him--vaguely. i just want to wait a little while, can we? i just need some time." 

"well then, if that's what you want, i'm fine with it. let's just make sure we tell him, though. you are as important to him as you are to me, maybe even more important than me," chanyeol jokes, making sehun laugh. 

they sit there for a little while longer, in nothing but silence, until kyungsoo opens the door and sends them a weird look. there's no doubt he's wondering why sehun is leaning his head against chanyeol's shoulder and chanyeol his hugging him back. but even so, he doesn't say anything and proceeds to inform them that he and jongin will be heading home soon so they better get their asses in there so they can take a picture like they always do. 

in the end, they take a picture, and sehun feels like genuinely smiling. 

consider this evening a miracle in december--a christmas miracle. sehun feels happy, sincerely. he can smile as he holds baekhyun's youngest for the first time since he left the hospital. he can finally cry without feeling like a weakling. kyungsoo got the second child he's always dreamt of having, a new addition to the small family that contrasts baekhyun and chanyeol's in the most obvious ways possible. there was something positive that happened to everyone tonight, and even though there was still lots of progress to be made, everything was fine. they would worry later, think about luhan later, and cherish the moments they had now that meant more than anything else could.

tonight was full of miracles to remember. miracles in december. 


	13. Family, Friends, and Tying Up Loose Ends

"since losing myself to a disorder that can cause me to think horrible things about myself, about my family, my friends, and others, i have learnt to overcome it. years of just antidepressants did not work for me--not since my illness was my best-kept secret. but when i was able to get the truth out, when i was able to let myself free, it was like my world had changed and i had changed with it. thanks to my friends who are more like family to me, i can be here today, telling you my story. i have been in this group for a while, but i have reached a milestone in my life, one that i know my father would be proud of. i have officially eased off my antidepressants after years of taking them everyday as i sit down for breakfast. and, well, now that my story has come to an end, i want to thank you all for sticking around to listen to it," he finishes reading off of the paper he wrote just last night when he had have the sudden motivation to do it, and fidgets as he contemplates saying anything more or just sitting back down. 

a tall man stands up from his chair, a proud smile on his face. he always looks so kind. "thank you, sehun. that was wonderful. i think we should all give sehun a round of applause, don't you think?" everyone else in his group agrees and proceeds to clap for him, making the young mechanic's face turn red. "you may be seated, sehun. stick around after class ends, though. i'd like to talk to you," he says, gesturing for sehun to sit down. "anyone else?"

sehun follows his orders and sits down on his chair. he is made nervous by the man's words. jinyoung was like a teacher. he sort of scared sehun because when he spoke, he had a certain sense of authority that everyone else sehun knew of could never top. not even chanyeol or baekhyun, not even kyungsoo!

however, despite his internal crisis, which, yes, does occur when anyone says the words "stick around after class", sehun knows that he hasn't done anything bad. or has he? no, he couldn't have. what could he even be doing bad? jinyoung was not one to reprimand him, or anyone for that matter, so why did he want sehun to stay? his guess was as good as yours. 

after class, sehun sits in his seat, bouncing one knee out of nervousness. jinyoung is saying goodbye to the last of the rest of his group therapy exited the gym and he was left to sit in silence as jinyoung turned around to walk over to his spot. 

sehun becomes confused when he sees jinyoung walk over to his bag instead, picking it up and throwing it over his shoulder. did he forget? but all confusion is cleared up when the elder looks at him with a smile and says, "come on, let's go for a walk." 

sehun follows jinyoung, sticking to his side as the other saunters down the sidewalk, not looking nearly as tense as sehun is. 

"why so tense, sehun?" his group therapy leader asks, sensing his conflicted aura. 

"i'm not tense," he defends weakly, diverting his eyes when jinyoung laughs. 

"seriously, sehun, you're like a walking tower of anxiety right now. what's so troubling?" 

sehun shrugs. "nothing, i swear."

jinyoung came to a sudden halt, grabbing sehun's wrist to stop him as well. he pulls the younger backwards to meet his gaze. "has therapy taught you nothing?" he asks jokingly. "you're supposed to tell if something is wrong. how am i supposed to fix what i have no clue about?" 

"maybe i wanted to fix it on my own..." 

jinyoung's eyes light up. "first of all, aha! you have just admitted to me that there is a problem by not denying it--just indirectly referencing it. and second of all, sehun," jinyoung continues, starting to walk again with sehun in tune with his steps. "you've been in group therapy for a little over a year now. you have--well, at least i think you have--addressed what problems you feel comfortable sharing with our class, correct? we are all there to support you, we all have answers to the questions you have. easing off will take some time, really. but just like with your medication, you can do it, slowly. problem-solving is a natural trait that lives within all of us, we just have to get in touch with that part of our mind, our body, and even our soul. and even though you have already done so well on being careful with your medicine and what you do, so well to the point that you are ready to stay off of them until further notice, you still need someone here for you. now, if you don't mind, tell me what's up." 

sehun sighs. "fine," he grumbles. "you've caught me." 

"does that mean you are going to tell me what's going on, or are we just going to keep quiet about it?" jinyoung asks in response. 

"ah, hyung," sehun whines. "ugh, fine. it's pretty stupid, i guess...but ever since my doctor told me i could stop taking my medicine any day now within a two-week period, i've been kind of nervous. like, what if i--"

"relapse?" jinyoung finishes his sentence for him. 

sehun's ears burn red. "...yeah." 

jinyoung chuckles, throwing a heavy arm around the younger as they continue walking. "i hate to break it to you, but there's no doubt that you aren't the only person thinking this way. trust me, there are people out there with the same fears. i had the same idea when i was getting over alcohol. what do i do if i just go back to where i was before? well, there's one thing i can tell you, kid, and it's to start all over again. everyday there's going to be struggles and obstacles that get in the way of your easy walk home, and sometimes there's ones that draw you all the way back to work, where you came from. the only solution is to try again, increase your dosages, maybe, talk to your doctor _especially,_ spend more time on antidepressants to ensure that you are completely over it. it's happened before, hasn't it?"

sehun nods. "yeah, but i didn't know what to do about it."

jinyoung looks understanding. "that's fair. more people like to pretend their depression never existed than those who pretend to have it. it is a very difficult thing, honestly, to struggle with something you think no one else understands, when i assure you, sehun, that there are plenty of people out there who think the same way you do. i'm sure you were afraid then, to consult with someone who you thought would only mock you. well, i'm here now, and i know you have that little family of yours back at the inn, and everywhere in this town, so you have _nothing_ to worry about."

sehun responds with a nod, not really sure how to voice his comprehension. still though, what does he do? what will he feel if this continues just right after it stopped?

"you're worrying again, aren't you?" the elder spoke up from beside him. "well, don't. whatever you're thinking about that is negative, don't. stop worrying and just be happy for yourself. like you said today in your story, you have reached a milestone. treat it like one, won't you? it's been years since i went back to school for psychology, and i'm still getting there, and i've never met someone quite like you, man. everything about these past few months you deserve to be proud of. hard work is not just hard labor; sometimes it is conquering something that lives on in your mind and grows like a disease. i am proud of you, we are all proud of you, so just stop worrying, okay? stop worrying and live like you want to." 

sehun smiles, momentarily taking his advice. don't worry--everything is going to be alright. 

jinyoung reaches over and ruffles sehun's hair, making the younger pull away, repulsed to having his hair messed up. "ah, come on, bud. let's get home," he says, reaching out his arm again to throw it over his shoulder. in the process, however, sehun sees the glint of jinyoung's engagement ring in the light, and thinks that whoever will be marrying this guy in a week's time, they're pretty fucking lucky. sehun is even more glad jinyoung is his friend, because he's been invited alongside baekhyun and chanyeol.

they reach jinyoung and his fiance's house first. "ah, shit, i totally forgot..." jinyoung mutters, which blows sehun away, because it's not that common to hear jinyoung cursing. 

"what? what is it?"

jinyoung taps his foot on the ground, thinking for a moment. "on second thought, you want to stay out a little longer? my fiance's best friend from studying abroad in china is here for wedding preparations, and let's just say...i've never met the guy before, but i'm super nervous because i've been told he can be _very_ protective, especially over my love. you wouldn't mind staying out just a little bit longer, would you? just so i can prepare myself."

sehun shrugs, barely even thinking about it. "sure. i mean, it's not like i have anything to do other than go over to chanyeol and baekhyun's for dinner tonight. and you know, it's funny that you're the therapist when you just reacted like _that_ to finding out his friend is here." 

jinyoung looks exasperated. "well, it's not like i want to die before my own wedding. i'm just being cautious. i've been so totally engrossed in my schedule this week, with group therapy plus classes. god, i'm lucky i took those psychology classes during university myself, or else i'd be staying for at least another two years. i just forgot and i really don't to face him now. now, can we go? the less seokkie knows, the better."

the younger just gave in with a strange look at the nickname "seokkie", but like it was normal for two perfectly grown men to do so, they raced each other to sehun's apartment, and sehun completely ignored the sleek, black BMW parked in jinyoung's garage that most definitely didn't belong to jinyoung nor his fiance. 

"hello?" when sehun enters the house, he's faced with nothing but silence. the sun is streaming through the windows, cast upon the wooden floorboards that chanyeol installed when the couple bought the house. by the door at least twenty pairs of shoes lay in a pile of various sizes, varying from chanyeol's large ones to donghyun's toddler-sized ones. 

he looks around, wandering around the corners of the house. he thinks he's gotten nowhere until he finds himself in the kitchen with yejun sitting at the table. the boy is sitting silently, holding a pencil with consistent strokes over a piece of paper. 

"yejun?" 

the boy looks up, unfazed at the sight of his godfather standing in the kitchen. after all, it was the plan that sehun was supposed to come for dinner. "oh, hey, uncle sehun," he says, looking back down at his paper. 

"where's your parents?" sehun asks, pulling out a chair and grabbing an apple from the bowl in the center of the table. he sits down, leaning back and watching the boy scribble messy hangul down on his paper. 

"papa's sick, dad went to the store with the twins to get papa's medicine, and donghyunnie and chanhyunnie are taking their naps," he replies, without missing a beat. 

sehun's eyebrows furrow. "sick?" 

"yep. he has a fever and he threw up this morning." 

sehun didn't dare think about it any longer as he assumed yejun didn't know much more than that. biting into his apple, he focuses on the boy again, watching how his left fist was clenched and was gritting his teeth. 

"trouble with homework?" 

"it's math." 

sehun cracks a grin at the boy's bitter tone. "you don't like it, or is it hard?" 

"both," the boy grunts. 

"anything i can help you with?" 

"you're twenty-five. you tell me." 

the mechanic chuckles. "fair enough." the boy slides the paper across the table to sehun, leaning back in his chair with a sour look on his face. "ah, come on, kid. this stuff is easy. i mean, yeah, i'm adult, but still." 

the boy pulls a face. "no, it's not." 

"i'm not the best at math, but even i know this stuff. tell me, why don't you know this? don't they teach you this in school? or were you not paying attention?" 

yejun mutters something sheepishly. 

"hmm? i didn't get that." 

"i wasn't paying attention," the boy whispers.

sehun looks at him curiously. "and why's that?"

yejun swallows audibly. sehun feels amused. it's not like he cares whether or not yejun pays full attention or not, despite caring for the boy's future, because he's only in first grade, but he knows that the boy's parents surely will. they only want their child to be successful and to be able to pursue his dreams. 

"were you distracted?" the boy nods. "by what?" 

"areum gave me her pencil in math class. today was picture day and s-she looked really pretty," he replies, red painting his cheeks. 

sehun is surprised for a moment, never thinking he'd hear those words come from yejun's mouth. the boy was very education-oriented. "as in jung areum? taeyong's kid?" 

the boy stays quiet, but his short, barely-there nod gives sehun his answer. 

"do you like her?" 

sehun begins to think yejun is going to answer the question, but then he picks up his pencil and puts on a straight face. "help me with my homework, please?" though it is small, yejun pouts, and sehun can't say no. 

after a while of helping yejun with his math, light footsteps can be heard from the stairs and baekhyun stumbles down with a baby monitor in his hand, looking tired. he freezes when he sees sehun sitting at the table. 

"oh, sehun, i'm so sorry. i totally forgot you were coming," he groans sluggishly. "we were just going to have leftovers for dinner. chanyeol's gone--" 

"to the store, i know," sehun answers. "i heard you're sick. what's up?" 

"i've been sick since the day before yesterday. we pondered on it being," he pauses, tentative eyes going to yejun as the boy just carries on with his homework, seemingly unaware that baekhyun was even in the room. "an _accident_ , but i don't think it is. we've been careful lately, and even though i know being careful isn't completely reassuring, i just don't think we can handle another. chanhyun is being a pain lately." he sighs exasperatedly. "nonetheless, if it is, which i don't think it will be, i guess we're getting a new...addition." 

yejun looks up from his homework, eyes narrowing in on his parent. he says, "you're really bad at trying to keep secrets, papa," before turning back to his homework like nothing ever happened. 

baekhyun stares at him in awe for a few moments before he breaks out laughing, looking at least a little bit brighter. he reaches out and ruffles the boy's thick hair, making the child swat his hand away. 

"you little monster," he mumbles, leaning down to kiss his firstborn on the forehead lovingly. then he walks over to the refrigerator and sehun notices just how small he looks in that t-shirt, it most likely being chanyeol's. "well, since you're here, i can make you something. what do you want?" 

sehun shrugs. "i'm fine. i ate lunch with jinyoung at my apartment today and i just came here thinking we had plans." 

"speaking of jinyoung, how is he? it's been a while since i've spoken to him." after the parks reunited the second time, baekhyun and jinyoung, with a comment or two from chanyeol that may or may not have been slightly jealous, decided to stay friends. it took a long time of baekhyun explaining to chanyeol that jinyoung was the person who made baekhyun recognize his resolute feelings for chanyeol, the giant finally relented and said it was okay. ever since then, they've been friends, and baekhyun has even become well-acquainted with jinyoung's fiance, who sehun has yet to meet. 

jinyoung has even become an important figure in sehun's life--being a psychologist in training--and was yet another source of comfort for the younger to turn to whenever it was necessary. knowing about him for years, but only personally knowing him for almost a year and a half, sehun has come to the conclusion that jinyoung's a giant goofball stuffed into the body of a genius life-counselor. he has struggled with similar issues to sehun, thus making the two good at understanding what happened in their individual lives. 

sehun thinks for a moment. jinyoung seems elated about his upcoming wedding, but about meeting his fiance's best friend? that was a completely different story. "he's good, for the most part at least."

baekhyun looks relieved. "good, i'm glad. he really deserves this, you know? after all that heartbreak... sometimes i wonder what would've happened if i'd fallen in love with him instead of chanyeol again all those years ago, and i always come to the conclusion that my life wouldn't be nearly as complicated if i had, but i have no regrets. i love my husband. stupid or not, he is mine for the rest of eternity." 

sehun and yejun, who is vaguely aware of his family's past and is now finished with his homework, both cringe and simultaneously let an out 'ew'. 

"what?" baekhyun asks innocently. "loving someone is very important. if i never loved your father like i do, yejun, we would both probably be single right now, and you, young man," he says with a gesture to yejun, "would never exist. besides, you're both going to grow up one day and find that person you love the most in the world. and if you don't, that's okay, because i'll always love you more than anybody ever could. but i just know it'll happen. i just _know_ it." 

since that day in the driveway of the parks' inn, the same one his truck sits in now, dry and deprived of the chains he uses to endure the icy winter roads since it is now fading into spring, sehun has not once considered starting a relationship. there was just something about the feeling luhan's words left him with that made him feel like he should stay way from romance for a while. a while ended up being a year and a half, but that didn't bother him; just like staying away from the sports channel didn't bother him, just how not drinking eventually stopped bothering him, and how his disorder didn't really seem like a disorder anymore, just another struggle he would face down the long road of life. 

baekhyun turns away from the fridge, deciding not go with anything. 

"whatever you say," sehun mutters. 

moments later, the door bursts open and chanyeol stalks in with the twins following. their hair is messed up, pinned down obviously by chanyeol when he must've been in a rush to go to the store to get whatever medicine you can take for an unplanned, supposed pregnancy, but looking cute nonetheless. 

"here, love," chanyeol says, hastily handing baekhyun the bag. "go do whatever you need to do. i'll just be...here, i guess." baekhyun gives him an unimpressed look, presumably because of the eager tone, but grabs the bag and heads upstairs, leaving the baby monitor on the counter in the process. 

"woah, what's got your panties in a bunch, dude?" sehun asks, eyeing the way chanyeol looks overly stressed. it's not a strange occurence, honestly, as chanyeol usually looking oddly constipated when he is overwhelmed. normally sehun would've asked "got a stick up your ass, bro?", but figured that was not appropriate considering how three out of the five park children were sitting in the room. 

chanyeol glares at him, taking a seat at the table as the twins rush up the stairs to their room to most likely play barbies. "don't talk to me like that." 

sehun raises an eyebrow, surprised at the tone. "okay then..." 

"it's just- this lady at the store...she told me that..." 

"that?" sehun urges.

"that she could tell i was the girls' father. can you believe that? she just happens to know i'm their father!" 

the mechanic suppresses some laughter at the revelation. seriously? what was so alarming about that? "okay? so why are you upset about it?" 

"do you not see what she meant by that? she's suggesting i look like a father, which means i look _old_." 

sehun rolls his eyes. "how do you know she wasn't meaning that your kids just look like you...? because they really do."

"she didn't, trust me- at least i don't think she meant it that way. seriously, sehun, you should have seen it! she looked- she was totally bored when saying it!" chanyeol exclaims, crossing his arms with a characteristic pout. sehun, whether the woman was saying what chanyeol thought she was saying or not, though chanyeol was easily one of the most youthful people he's ever met. he and baekhyun--seriously, those two still look the same way they did in high school, just with chanyeol being a lot bigger than before. 

"tell me, yeol, was she a teenage girl? about ye tall, with a hoodie and ripped jeans, did she look like she didn't want to be there?" 

chanyeol stares at him, flabbergasted. "how did you know?!"

sehun chuckles. "i was just listing off traits to every typical teenage girl nowadays, yeol. geez, you're so naive."

"i am not!"

"are you sure?" sehun asks skeptically. "because i'm pretty sure that if i look close enough, i can see a gray hair on top of your head." he squints, leaning closer across the table to chanyeol. the taller gasps, unbelieving. then he hops up and nearly runs up the steps, shouting "no! it can't be!" sehun only snorts, knowing that it would be impossible. chanyeol was far too young to be developing gray hairs, overwhelming amount of stress or not. 

"you're evil, uncle sehun," yejun comments from beside him at the table, looking amused in the wake of his dad's sudden outburst. "but i love it," he adds, only making the mechanic grin even wider. 

that night, baekhyun ends up ordering fried chicken since he's apparently not feeling well enough to cook, chanyeol isn't allowed near the kitchen unless completely necessary, and, well, anything goes for sehun. 

things were a lot less heavier after baekhyun took a pregnancy test and discovered it was negative, and then took two more to be sure, both of which presented with the same results. it's not that they didn't want another baby, they were just afraid they couldn't handle another one. business has been pretty good lately, but chanyeol has been taking up a job or two for fixing fences all over town to make extra money, but they expect better by summer. if there had been another, they would have loved it as much as their other children, would've made the same promise that they would never leave them, but things were just too complicated right now, and assuming baekhyun had likely contracted allergies from the incoming spring was a better thing to think. 

after chanyeol literally made baekhyun look for that single gray hair that sehun had unabashedly lied about, and after it was confirmed that there, in fact, was no gray hair in the first place, the taller sulked downstairs as they waited for dinner to arrive.

and damn, the fried chicken was good, and sehun knew that jongin would kill them all if he found out they had been eating it without him. 

it's when they are all nearly finished eating that sehun decides to speak up about his recent accomplishment. 

"i got some good news the other day," he says, catching everyone's attention as they stuff their faces with the last of the fried chicken. 

"go on," baekhyun says slowly, stretching an arm over to wipe excess grease off of soomin's mouth, the girl glaring at him afterwards.

sehun smiles. "i got a report back from my doctor and it says that i no longer have to take my antidepressants unless i'm sure i need to, so he's given me two weeks to decide whether or not i want to keep going. it's been a while since, you know, my dosages started getting smaller and i've been feeling better. i guess i'm like chanhyun, i don't need much treatment," he laughs at his own joke, only to find the family watching him with surprise. "...guys?"

and the next thing he knew, he was being tackled by a family of crazy people, pulled into a tight and inescapable embrace. his breath is literally knocked out of him. there's so many sounds--"oh my gosh, yes!" and "we're so proud!" and "i just want to hug you till a unicorn that farts glitter comes out of the sky on a rainbow, because that's how much i love you!", obviously from one of the twins. 

chanhyun audibly whines, upset that he isn't being included. baekhyun unravels his arms and gathers the small boy, bringing him into the hug too. "we all love you, he should be here too," he says before he's completely wrapped in a relentless embrace that, surprisingly, he doesn't feel like pulling away from. 

this was his family, the one he would never let go off. hopefully, nothing, rather _no one_ , would ever get in the way of that. 


	14. One by One

"why are you so nervous?" minseok asks he holds the door of the shop open for luhan to exit. "you're acting like you're the one getting married."

they just finished checking out the results of minseok's tuxedo order for his wedding, along with the girls' dresses. luhan has been restless since he parked his car in the garage, since he got here, and even since he found that minseok and his fiance live in _this_ town of all towns. the elder had been checking on him multiple times without ever saying anything, just watching out of the corner of his eye as luhan fidgeted while doing just the most normal things. like how he was silently pacing in the store just a little while ago, how he was shuffling in the bakery they confirmed the wedding cake flavor in, and even rushing to get gas every time they stopped to get it.

luhan just shrugs. "who said i was nervous?"

"no one. but i've been your friend for years and you'd be stupid to think i don't know how you function." minseok rolls his eyes, patting hanuel's back as if silently telling her to hurry along. the smaller girl runs to the car alongside her taller sister, hana purposefully slowing down to let her win in their little race.

"nothing's wrong. i'm just... i'm just excited that you're getting married after all these years. i honestly thought you'd spend the rest of eternity alone," the younger remarks.

"thanks for the vote of confidence," minseok replies, raising a hand to slap the back of the other's head.

luhan just laughs and reaches behind to rub the spot that'd been hit. "a man who spent his time as a bartender with an unfinished degree in literature and no life, shouldn't need one."

this time, minseok only shakes his head with a small laugh at his friend's jokes, which both knew very well were just jokes and only that. when in front of the car, they parted ways and got into their respective sides, with the elder at the driver's seat and luhan in the passenger's.

minseok goes to turn the key in the ignition, only for the car to let out an exasperated sound.

luhan's eyebrows furrow. "what was that?"

minseok sighs. "i'm not sure. it's been happening for three days now. i should really get it checked out. i've been meaning to but i haven't found the time with the wedding preparations and the girls and, well, my life."

luhan nods, thinking nothing of it. "you definitely should. you wouldn't want to break down at the wrong place with these two hooligans in the back, am i right?" he teases, looking into the backseat where minseok's step-children giggle at being mentioned.

"jinyoung knows a guy. surely he'll help us out."

at the third time, the car finally starts and both adults release a relieved sigh. when the girls were distracted with their games on luhan's phone, minseok took advantage of the fact that luhan had no escape.

tentatively, he says, "you never answered my question. why are you so nervous?"

luhan seems startled now that he had no where to go in this live conversation where he couldn't just leave minseok on read and avoid the topic completely, and since the girls had his phone, there was really no way he could escape answering it. "oh... you know, it's a new place."

what minseok didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

minseok hums, unsatisfied. "but you normally like going to new places. sure, you're usually this shy, but never this _nervous_."

"why does it feel like you're interrogating me?" he asks with a groan.

"don't change the subject."

"fine. i just don't like it here, okay? there's just something about it..."

"well, i love it here. it's been my home for a long time, since i went to high school when i came back from china. there's nothing you should fear here, luhan."

maybe not some _thing_ , but certainly some _one_.

"do you not trust me enough to tell me why you're so conflicted?" the elder asks, and luhan cringes internally because he should've expected this. it's not that minseok isn't trustworthy, because years of being friends has shown luhan that yes, minseok is a great, close friend who understands the concept of secrecy and stuff like that, but who's to say he wouldn't slip up? purposefully or by accident? either way, luhan was not going to risk it, because he knows that when minseok wants to be, he can be mischievous.

"no..." he groans. "it's not that, i swear. just give me some time, i'll get used to it."

minseok rolls his eyes for the umpteenth time. "fine. but don't you dare think i won't find out. i'm friends with byun baekhyun, and he can find out _anything_."

luhan's blood ran cold at the mention of baekhyun, someone, in the little time he was here, he found himself admiring. it wasn't like _that_ type of admiration, but you know, the kind where you look at someone's life and wish it was yours. some would call that envy, luhan calls it aspiration. he wants to be like baekhyun; have a pretty house in a small town, have a strong family that would love him as much as he loves them, a husband that looks at him like he's his whole world, and just to be beautiful like baekhyun. there was something about baekhyun, despite the loudness, the aggression, and the tendency to cross boundaries, that was just... perfect. luhan wanted to be like him.

"luhan? are you listening to me?"

luhan snaps out of it, putting his focus back on minseok when he notices the other has been speaking the entire time and he hasn't been listening. "um- yes, what were you saying?"

"i was just asking about the others. you live there, so i assume you see them often. i'm so happy they can come, jongdae too!" the elder exclaims, sounding much more chipper in comparison to his earlier self that nearly interrogated luhan.

"they're fine, actually. just very busy like usual. zitao is busy with his music, yixing spends so much time writing songs when he's not flying down to meet his husband. he's actually thinking about moving down here, which is super great 'cause they're married and all, and it would be stupid not to live together when you're married to someone who lives here. then yifan is distracted with all the modeling opportunities he's got--that guy has a huge ego, no joke. i'm also really excited they get to come, because it's be so long since they were last in korea all together." he exhales after talking for so long because he really has a lot to say and there's only so much he could get out at once.

minseok chuckles. "i'm happy too. i've been friends with you guys for years and yet, the only time i get to see you is through a screen."

luhan feels guilty, sort of. he was here a year ago, barely three miles away from minseok, and yet he never made time to surprise minseok, nor did he make an effort to even tell him he was there at all. it's true--it's been years since they've seen each other, and the fact that he was so close to seeing him even when he didn't even know he lived here continues to blow his mind.

luhan is about to say something when there's an abrupt sputtering sound hailing from the front of the car, which brings on the news that they are gradually getting slower.

"fuck..." minseok mutters as he hurries to pull over and let cars go past him. "i knew i should've gotten this checked out when i first heard it."

"great, now we're going to be late and i can't meet your man yet..." luhan mumbles, chewing on his nails. he can't even think of the possibilites right now, or the probability of one of those possibilities becoming their only hope.

the elder sighs, slapping the steering wheel with his palm while narrowly avoiding the horn. hesitantly he opens his door and exits the car, walking around and popping the hood, staring down at the convoluted expanse that was the machine under the front of the car. he can't even begin to formulate an answer, everything just too complicated for him mind. he's a fucking bartender, for heaven's sake. he's not going to know shit about a car and how to fix it.

sighing defeatedly, he shuts the hood and travels back to his seat in the car. luhan looks at him expectantly but minseok just shrugs it off, pulling his phone out of his pocket to dial his fiance's number.

"i guess we'll just wait here and see if anyone stops to help. if not, then i guess we'll be walking back," he says, hitting jinyoung's number on his contacts list.

they wait, with minseok calling jinyoung multiple times and leaving a few whispered swears when it always goes to voicemail, the girls too distracted by luhan's phone to notice the panic filling the adults every passing second. it's not like a 'it's-the-end-of-the-world' sort of panic, but more like a 'this-is-very-embarrassing-because-it-just-is' kind. walking along the side of the highway with two small children, one adult that will be sulking because his shoes got ruined, and another one angry because his fiance isn't picking up.

"you know what?" minseok says after a while. "jinyoung's friend--i have his card. surely he can help us since nobody in this so-called friendly town has enough kindness to stop and help a neighbor."

he hops out of the car, pacing as he holds the phone up to his ear after looking at the card which he took from his wallet. most of the time, minseok is either a worrywart or literally gives zero fucks whatsoever. it seems now is one of those times where he is worrying, because they definitely don't want to end up walking home and they're biggest responsibility right now is keeping the girls safe, so whatever they have to do must be done.

minseok gets back in moments later, looking a little bit relieved.

"everything okay?" luhan asks.

minseok nods. "yeah. if they can't fix it, we get a free ride."

luhan just hums, turning when he feels a small tap on his shoulder. hanuel quietly hands him his phone, which is vibrating with a call. "oh, thank you."

"hello? ah, zitao!"

he speaks to zitao, another man both he and minseok went to school with when minseok studied in china. after minseok moved away and jongdae went with him, they had a hard time keeping in contact when they got into university, and especially when jongdae and minseok split. but after some graduations took place and others became stars on the rise, they were capable of reuniting. luhan and minseok remained in korea, yixing occasionally visited from china, and zitao and kris were based solely in china.

the younger tells him that their flight got delayed and that they will be late, whining about it childishly as he always is. there was kris in the background, audibly telling zitao to shut up because he was frowning, and frowning could cause terrible, tragic wrinkles. after a while, tao hands the phone to yixing, who seems a little more composed compared to the other two who were still arguing in the background. he informs them that they will be able to catch a flight later tonight that will get them here by early tomorrow morning.

after straightening things out, luhan converses a little more with yixing, who seems elated to be coming back to korea because, of course, he can't wait to see his husband again. he's met junmyeon once or twice, first time at their wedding, and he's honestly happy that yixing can finally come back and see his husband after a few long months apart.

then they hang up, luhan sighing as he leans his head against the headrest. he explains everything to minseok, the older man nodding in comprehension.

the taller male looks ahead through the windshield, watching with bored eyes as the cars pass by. until his heart stops when he sees a familiar truck barreling in their direction. chipped, sunburnt paint-job, rumbling engine, and everything.

it passes them at first, the ex-celebrity (now he can be as cool as chanyeol) feeling relieved as it looks like it's going elsewhere, but his heart misses beats again when it turns around, traveling along the grassy bank to pass them again and park in front of them. luhan guesses it's for efficient placement, but it doesn't do efficient things to his mind.

sure enough, when the truck stops rumbling, a tall figure steps out, donning a white t-shirt with a black leather jacket over it, a tight pair of blue jeans hugging his long legs--he definitely isn't any ordinary mechanic. ugh... the man of both luhan's dreams and his nightmares.

when he makes eye contact through the windshield, he expects to see sehun stop in his tracks, turn around and walk right back to truck, then drive away like he saw nothing and pretend luhan never existed. however, that doesn't happen. all he sees is the subtle flash in the mechanic's eyes as the man walks on. he didn't do what luhan wanted nor what he imagined.

he walked right over to the car, and minseok opened the door and got out again, and it seemed like sehun had a second state of realization as he shook hands with minseok.

luhan could hear sehun ask in a muffled voice if he was jinyoung's fiance and his friend replied in confirmation. the rest of their conversation was tuned out by luhan's heart beating in his ears. in reality, what is he even scared of? oh, i don't know, maybe just sehun pulling him of the car to bark in his face just as luhan had to done to him, because in his eyes, sehun seemed like a very vengeful person.

but what he doesn't expect is to find himself in the front seat of the tall man's pickup truck a little while later. it smells like him, deep and intense, and luhan can tell it's because of his cologne. he's had this truck for too long, he knows, and now his scent is embedded into its walls.

watching him with _subtlety_ , luhan can see his eyes focused solely on the road, his jaw clenched, but not in an angered, i-hate-you kind of way, because he was actually stoic--just expressionless, not angry at the world. he looks... peaceful; a guise luhan was quite unfamiliar with around this man.

it rocks his world when the other turns to look at him, seemingly catching the fact that luhan had been staring at him for the past few minutes. reflexively, _frantically_ , luhan diverts his gaze, choosing to find the world ahead more interesting than the man sitting beside him.

in his peripheral vision, he could see the way sehun's lips curved in just the corner, meaning he _smiled_. maybe he smirked, but luhan chose to believe he smiled, even though that was a rather unrealistic idea, and it was most definitely uncharacteristic of sehun to do such... neighborly things.

"so... how long have you known jinyoung?" minseok asks, his voice breaking the silence and the unaddressed tension between the two in the front.

sehun clears his throat, glancing the rear-view mirror. "a year or so. and i'll tell you, you got a good one," he chuckles, not missing the way minseok blushes.

"i did, didn't i," the older man murmurs, smiling to himself.

"papa, when are we going to see daddy?"

ah, so minseok's step-children have long embraced the fact that he was going to be their father. after spending years with him, it's only normal to assume they don't just see him as the person their dad is getting married to, but as their other parent now, too. luhan just hopes that minseok's fiance has told them that their relation is not biological and manages to tell them about their mother, as minseok as told him over the phone, and that minseok loves them as much as their real mother would.

"soon. this nice man is taking us to see him since our car broke down. you know the address, right?"

sehun nods. "my friend owns the place, so i definitely know where you're going to meet," says sehun. "and i assume you're the best friend, right?" sehun shoots him, him of _all_ people in the vehicle, a look and cocks an inquisitive eyebrow.

"uh... yes," luhan answers, quietly.

"i've heard _a lot_ about you from jinyoung, you know," he says, but neither can tell if it is directed to one of them in particular.

somehow luhan gets the feeling that even though minseok is the star of the show since he's the fiance and he's literally getting married in a week, the words are really meant for him. he knows minseok's fiance is nervous about meeting him, he can simply tell from how he and minseok cackled about it for hours over the phone. but what sense would that make?

 _sehun doesn't even like him_.

soon, they pull up to the restaurant they're supposed to meet minseok's fiance at, and minseok starts unbuckling the girls. they shuffle out of the truck and they meet sehun in front, the taller agreeing to take it back to the shop to take a better look at it. it all works out, really, since jinyoung has his own vehicle and can drive them back home.

minseok goes to pay him handsomely, but luhan watches in awe as sehun refuses, telling him it's a mere favor for a friend. the eldest also catches sehun's eyes on luhan from time to time and it plants a smug look on his face. minseok herds his step-children and leaves, but not before leaving luhan behind as if he knew that luhan and sehun weren't actually total strangers and knew each other some way. all he says is "he's single", and luhan felt like snapping his friend's neck right then and there.

how was this even happening?

"back in town, huh?" sehun asks when they're alone.

luhan can taste the petulance rising in his throat, and not literally. it was in the form of anger. "weren't you the one that wanted me to leave?" he spits, tone thoroughly bitter just for dramatic effect.

sehun exhales, hands shoved in his pockets, which is _so_ like him that it makes luhan upset. "fair enough. but i didn't think you'd come back this quick. honestly, i thought you'd find a way to stay away from here after that. speaking of staying away, how's america?"

huh, he must not be reading headlines anymore.

"you'd have liked that, wouldn't you? you have that 'there's not room for two of us in this town' attitude. but guess what? my friend is getting married, and i'm not letting you stop me."

"wasn't planning on it," replies sehun.

"that's what i thought- wait, what?"

sehun chuckles. "your idea of me obviously strays a little far from reality."

luhan glares at him. "what evidence have you given me to presume otherwise? none. in fact- why am i even here, talking to you? you're just an asshole anyway. i could be meeting my friend's husband-to-be right now," luhan huffs, crossing his arms with finality before he begins to walk away.

but then, like history all over once again, a hand lands on his shoulder and a taller, much more broad figure is standing before him, the cocky look gone from his features. "just... wait a minute."

one things crosses luhan's mind: who is this man and where is oh sehun? where is that son of a bitch, that man fluent in asshole, the jerk who made two weeks of his life living hell? and who the fuck is this guy?

"go on," he urges, secretly a little curious.

"look... about what, you know, happened, i'm sorry. i actually can't believe i'm doing this in the middle of a parking lot where people can see, but it turns out that i am because it would have been fucking awkward to do it in the truck, not only because he was there and would have asked questions, and even the kids- their minds can wander--"

"can you get to the point please?" the shorter questions impatiently.

"uh, yeah," sehun stumbles on his words. "i just wanted to say that i'm sorry, and i was going through a rough time... when you were here, and even before. there's just something about you..." luhan almost holds his breath when he hears those words, thinking of a scenario that would play out like a dream if it were real. was he really thinking that sehun would admit he thought the same about luhan as he thought years ago?

love at first sight, pfft. what a joke.

"about new people _in general_ , that gets me worked up, you know? you probably don't. and the reason why is very personal and i don't really feel comfortable sharing it, but it's just the reason why i was so hard on you. honestly, luhan, i regret it. you're a really good person and it was wrong of me to ever do or say what i did to you, but i hope you can forgive me... please? i don't sleep well at night knowing i was the reason things were hard for you."

wow, luhan wants to say, look at you, oh sehun. you actually have feelings. you can actually talk about them! who would've known? obviously not me.

luhan sucks it up to do what he nor sehun had the balls to do a year ago and decided to be the bigger person. to shake hands with the enemy and walk away without his pride, but still in possession of his artillery. to leave behind a duel with both his and his competitions' lives, guns still in their holsters, every bullet left in the magazine.

"i forgive you," luhan replies, short and simple.

sehun has an incredulous expression. "r-really? wow, i wasn't expecting that. honestly i thought you were going to punch me in the face. i thought i was going to have to get down on my knees and beg or something--"

"can we just end this here?" he asks. "i'm late enough to dinner. wouldn't want minseok getting the wrong idea."

"right," sehun says, biting his lip. "anyways, thank you. i know i don't deserve it. i'm making this way harder than it has to be and- i'll just get going. just... enjoy dinner. the food's really good," he adds in a state of nervousness before he rushes off to go do whatever oh sehun does. luhan watches the noisy, beat-up truck tumble its way out of the parking lot and leave him there.

dear god, that was the weirdest thing he's ever done.

confused, happy, and a little afraid all at once, luhan enters the restaurant as if what took place moments ago hadn't rocked his assumptions of who sehun really was.

kyungsoo cracks his knuckles which are stiff from a long day of working hard. one of his main chefs has been on a leave since his wife gave birth, and so he filled in since he knows the menu like the back of his hand. after all, it's his restaurant.

yawning, he turns turns the corner that leaves the kitchen to open up the dining hall and leans against the wall. he smiles when he sees jongin approaching him with jia in his arms. since returning from maternity leave, it's been hard to constantly be away from his newborn daughter and actually have things to do other than sit and watch her feline (which he was very glad she took from jongin) eyes flutter open all day.

jongin looks like he's had a long day at the studio when kyungsoo knows he's not. he's been at home watching and feeding and changing and doing literally _everything_ for jia, and then having mini-dance parties with taeoh since they really have nothing other than that to do while jia is taking a nap.

"hey, baby," jongin greets, expecting to hear it back, but what he gets is an eager kyungsoo taking his daughter into his arms. " _love you too_ ," he sarcastically adds.

"how have you been today?" kyungsoo coos at his daughter. "you look like you've had a great day with daddy and taetae. you have, haven't you? daddy's been taking such good care of you..." the carrier leans his head against jongin's shoulder, the taller accepting the affection from his husband that he loves so much.

"yes, and jia has been very good for daddy. she even drank all her milk, didn't she? yes, she did, and she was very sleepy after that, so she went to bed very easily. such a good girl..."

together they spend kyungsoo's lunch break in awe of their three-month-old as they steal a table, and talk when jia yet again closes her eyes and falls asleep whilst listening to kyungsoo's heartbeat.

"how's taeoh been?" kyungsoo asks quietly, avoiding causing his daughter to wake up because she's already fallen asleep in an extremely noisy place.

jongin sighs. "good. he was grumpy today, though. i think it was because she seemed to want all the attention, but you know, it's just like every other day."

kyungsoo hums. "he likes to play with her, i can tell, even when she's too small to do it back. but he just becomes so upset when she cries over anything. i don't know what we should do about it. i don't want him growing up angry that he's not the center of attention, you know? he's been in that position his whole life, but since three months ago things have been different."

"i don't understand it. i just hope this stops. one day they're going to realize that they need each other when we're not here, but with them being this age... i guess life is just a game. anyway, he begged to go over to yejun's, didn't he?"

jongin's nod is all he needs for confirmation.

"he was pouty, i couldn't just deny him when he does that face, you know what i mean? damn it, i'm a terrible father..." jongin rubs his temples.

as much as kyungsoo wants to scold him for falling victim to the hypnotizing eyes of their child, he just can't. ridiculing jongin would only do worse. "no, you are not. you are an amazing father who still needs some practice in looking past those puppy eyes, but you'll get there someday. i promise you, you are a wonderful father, an excellent husband, and i love- holy shit..."

"who the fuck is 'holy shit' and why do you love him- ow!" kyungsoo smacks the dense idiot on the shoulder the best he can without waking jia. "the hell was that for?" using his head, kyungsoo nearly sprains his neck trying to motion to a table across the restaurant.

the younger man follows his gaze and it lands on a party sitting by kyungsoo's copy of a piece of modern art he bought at an auction two years ago. there's three adults and two children, all of which involved in conversation. but one more than the others...

"holy shit! oh, that's what you meant... once again, holy shit, isn't that luhan?"

"keep your damn voice down, jongin!" kyungsoo scolds in a whisper, not wanting to catch any unwanted attention or wake up the baby. "and yes, i think it is... but what is he doing here?"

"how would i know?"

"it was a rhetorical question, sweetheart."

"oh, right... do you think sehun knows he's here?" the tan male asks, wide-eyed.

kyungsoo doesn't answer right away, digging in his pocket for his phone. "if he doesn't already, he will soon."

chanyeol is just finished with changing chanhyun's diaper when the phone rings. seeing as baekhyun how is currently buried in a pile of laundry, he takes the opportunity to rush downstairs to grab the phone before it goes to voicemail.

"hello?"

"chanyeol, put baekhyun on the phone," kyungsoo demands.

chanyeol balances the phone between his shoulder and his ear, trying to avoid chanhyun's boundaryless mouth as it manages to snag his other ear lobe, but he faces it like a man and a father--with balls and determination to help the kid through the teething stage. "can't. today's laundry day."

it's like he can hear kyungsoo rolling his eyes. "i don't care what day it is, get baekhyun."

"but, soo... don't you want to talk to me? whatever you say to my husband, you can say to me."

"must i ask again, park chanyeol? it sounds like you're just begging to get on my bad side," kyungsoo growls over the line.

chanyeol's eyebrows furrow. "aren't i already on your bad side--"

"damn it, chanyeol, just get baekhyun!"

"fine," he repents, shuffling to push chanhyun further up on his shoulder so that he won't fall at any point. he enters the laundry room to find baekhyun in the exact same spot he was in the last time he checked on him, only the vein on his forehead becoming more prominent. "uh, babe, it's for you. kyungsoo wants to speak to you."

baekhyun almost looks relieved as he pulls himself from the abyss that was the park house's laundry day and took the phone immediately, seeming so eager to get out of there that he would actually talk to kyungsoo willingly after such an abrupt call.

"yes?" baekhyun asks, sitting down at the table.

"baek," kyungsoo greets. "you're not going to believe this..."

baekhyun's jaw is on the floor by the time he hangs up, with chanyeol wondering what's wrong with his previously stressed-out husband.

"is everything okay?" chanyeol asks.

baekhyun grins mischievously. "everything is perfect."

  
"hello?"

"minseok, hi!" baekhyun's cheery voice echoes over the phone.

"oh, hey, baekhyun. what's up?" the entire table looks at him: jinyoung with a curious look on his face; luhan with a rather pale face; the twins asking if it's the same man who has two twin daughters just like them.

there's a slight pause, before baekhyun speaks again. "yes, i have a few questions, actually. first of all, how do you know luhan?"

by the end of it, minseok hangs up and looks at luhan with sharp eyes. he only utters the words "you have a lot of explaining to do" before they all get back to eating, but luhan's appetite is already gone.

the last thing sehun expects when he's underneath jinyoung's fiance's car is for his phone to ring, the sound reverberating in the small space full of metal and sound-reflective materials.

sighing, he scoots himself out from under the car, pulling out his phone from where it vibrates against his butt. he rolls his eyes at the caller i.d., but it is most definitely expected.

"hey, baek," he answers nonchalantly, peeling off his jacket after the garage gets more hot.

"hello there, oh sehun," baekhyun speaks mysteriously. "where are you right now?"

sehun chooses not to voice how weirded out he is. "i'm at the garage. just picked up jinyoung's fiance and his kids and his friend, and now i'm checking out their vehicle, why?" he also chooses to leave out any tiny details that could possibly affect him in the long run.

"oh, really..." replies baekhyun, even more egnimatic. baekhyun was truly a conundrum in itself. "who was this "friend" of his?"

"okay, now you're just being plain weird. why did you call?"

"aha! and so it is confirmed, my friend, that you are avoiding the question because you know the real answer!"

"the real answer to what?" sehun asks, feigning ignorance. it's way easier to puzzle baehyun in return that way.

baekhyun chuckles. "don't play coy, young padawan. when were you going to tell me you knew luhan was back?" he asks. sehun tries his best not to burst out in laughter at "young padawan."

sehun bites his lip. "i didn't. not until i picked them up. i swear on my life, i didn't do anything."

baekhyun laughs as deeply as he can, trying to put on an intimidating stance when he knows he just can't. baekhyun was just a puppy in disguise, a very, very talkative and energetic (despite all his stress) puppy. "i know you didn't. and i know you won't. so that's why i need you to do something."

sehun's eyebrows furrow. "what?" he questions confusingly.

"you heard me right. you're _going_ to do something."

"you mean you want me to fuck this up a second time?" sehun inquires, even more lost.

"no, no, you idiot," baekhyun says. "you're not going to mess anything up. instead... you're going to fix things."

"too bad," sehun retorts. "i already apologized, and he forgave me."

baekhyun could be seriously the most annoying person on the earth when he wasn't stressing out about bills, and kids, and food, and kids, and husbands, and more bills, and did he mention kids? sehun thought he was thankful when baekhyun returned to his old self when he and chanyeol got back together, but seeing as how he was as obnoxious now when he wanted to be as he was in high school, sehun sort of takes that back.

"not good enough. you're going to get your ass out of that garage, use that wonderful accomplishment of yours, and you're going to work your ass off to get on his good side, you hear me?"

"and if i don't?"

"you know, chanyeol and i were considering going on vacation for our anniversary, and kyungsoo and jongin are really busy with jia and taeoh, maybe you could take the kids--"

"holy fucking shit, just tell me what you want me to do."

as much as he loved, absolutely adored being a godfather, sehun should not, would not, and definitely _could not_ take all five of the the parks' characteristically hectic, chaotic, early life heart attack-inducing children for a few hours, let alone a few _days_. since chanyeol and baekhyun happened to be very fertile, sehun finds being a godfather less pleasing than it used to be.

he could hear baekhyun's smug grin. "you're going to do everything you can to make sure he actually forgives you. he deserves to be treated like a prince after all you did to him."

"baekhyun, you know it was a bad time--"

"i know it was," baekhyun says. "but it was not an excuse to drive someone insane. it's either you do what i ask in whatever ways possible, all coming from your bank account, or you spend a good weekend with the kids while my husband and i get some well-deserved alone time. choose your fighter."

sehun huffs, finding himself at a fork in the road. "why are you doing this?" that was all the confirmation baekhyun needed.

"because you may think you’re fooling someone, sehun, with that composed facade you have, but deep down i know how you feel. i have known you since you were just the boy who followed chanyeol around like a lost puppy. i can see it. you may think i can't, but i can, and the more you try to deny it, the harder it'll come back to bite you. so take my advice now--do what i ask and show him the real you. you're not a bad guy and you're stupid if you think i will let him think you are. make it up to him, sehun. and maybe then he'll trust you again, and maybe he'll love you again."


End file.
